At first glance, it would appear that Steve Berlin is the odd man out in Los Lobos. He's not from east Los Angeles; the others are.

He's not from the same high school there; the others are. He's not a founding member; the others are. He's not, above all, Chicano; the others are. They're Los Lobos. | Backyard Tire Fire to open for Los Lobos

He's The Lone Wolf.

And yet, over the course of his quarter-century run with the legendary band, this non-Chicano kid from Philly has forfeited his "odd man out"/"lone wolf" standing many times over.

Not only does Berlin's howling sax help define the band's sound, his standing as the band's album producer has defined the very architecture of the key Los Lobos albums - from the heyday of the "La Bamba" soundtrack, straight through to such critical high-water marks as 1992's "Kiko" and the recent "The Town and the City."

Steve Berlin is, as he says, truly one of the extended family.

It's a kinship that will doubtless be apparent when Los Lobos performs their first concert ever in B-N, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday in the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts.

Flashing back to 1983 or 1984 ("I forget; it's lost in the mists of history," he sighs), Berlin recalls how his patently Germanic name became aligned with the patently Hispanic ones of David Hildago, Louie Perez, Conrad Lozano and Cesar Rosas: the four East L.A. high school chums who became the most formidable Tex-Mex rock-R&B unit in American pop history.

At the time Berlin, who split Philly for L.A. at age 19, was a member of punk rockers The Blasters.

At the same time, he began hanging with Los Lobos, a band he'd encountered by chance several years earlier at a Public Image Ltd., concert.

There, he recalls, the mostly punk-pandering crowd didn't quite know what to make of the four guys with their acoustic instruments and quasi-folkloric sounds. They voiced their confusion accordingly, flinging both verbal insults and physical objects their way.

The next seminal moment came when Berlin found Los Lobos opening for his own Blasters. Not long after, he began shuttling between the two musical units, sax in hand and allegiances evenly divided.

The Blasters, meanwhile, were exploding.

"They fought all the time, and I mean hitting-each-other-in-the-face fist-fighting. I was never high enough up on their food chain where I could ever offer an opinion on anything, even though I had some. So that was all kind of silly for me."

In between punching each other out over every little creative difference, the Blasters were also scaling back on the horn sounds that had gotten Berlin involved.

"It became obvious to me that I was going to have a lot of time to myself and that it was a good time to find something else to spend it on," he recalls. "Los Lobos were right there, and I sort of became a member after awhile. It was no big deal: I called and said I was available, and they said 'Oh, really? Cool.'"

All very laid back and informal, he says. But the shift in band dynamics was dramatic: "They had basically worked out their internal dramas years ago. By the time I joined, they all had kids and wives and responsibilities and all that stuff. Their aggressive hormonal period was over. They were adults right from the beginning."

Interestingly, he adds, "What I didn't realize at the time is how big a part the saxophone played in a lot of their music."

They just hadn't had anyone to express it for them on a permanent basis; now, with Berlin on board, the sax sounds erupted.

Even though his cultural heritage was separate from the four Chicanos, "I learned their styles and jumped right it in. I've always viewed it as a musicology project of sorts. And right from the very beginning, it always seemed like I was part of the family."

So much so that the band enlisted Berlin as their studio producer of sorts, pressing his expertise as an L.A. session musician into full-time duty."

Berlin joined Los Lobos just before the moment when everything exploded in the mid-'80s, first with their 1984 major album debut, "How Will the Wolf Survive"; next, via the band's career-altering rendition of "La Bamba" for the 1987 Ritchie Valens film biography of the same name.

The song topped the charts at No. 1 that summer and permanently put an end to Los Lobos' days as east L.A.'s premier wedding singers, which, notes Berlin, was still a part of their identity when he joined a few years earlier.

Through the years, Berlin has always been given free reign to indulge his passion for side projects, collaborations and producing albums for others, from Sheryl Crowe to Faith No More.

A notable bump in that side road came shortly before Los Lobos' "La Bamba" breakthrough when a tempting collaboration with Paul Simon on his award-winning "Graceland" album turned sour.

Long story short: Berlin and Los Lobos accused Simon of stealing one of their songs and claiming credit for himself on the track, "The Myth of Fingerprints."

"He stole it and took at as his own," says Berlin. "I never been treated so poorly before or since." The band never pursued litigation even though, per Berlin, "at the time we were higher on the industry food chain than Paul was; he was kind of floundering at the time."

Apart from that note, Berlin and Los Lobos' collaborations in the years since have been rewarding and memorable, including those with the likes of Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Mavis Staples, the Gipsy Kings and many others.

Their accomplishments range from a trio of Grammy Awards to the far-reaching experimentation of signature albums like "La Pistola y el Corazan" (1991), "Kiko" (1992), "The Ride" (2003) and their most recent, "The Town and the City."

And after 25 years of hanging with the boys from east L.A., Berlin is about as far from being the odd man in Los Lobos out as any "honorary Chicano" from Philadelphia could possibly hope.

"From the very beginning, it was so right musically," he says. "The guys were very warm and welcoming, and they made me feel like a member of the family."

Those ties, both musical and familial, he says, have only deepened over time.

"There's never been a moment where I've had to ask myself, 'what am I doing here'?"

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At a glance

What: Los Lobos with Backyard Tire Fire

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts, 110 E. Mulberry St., Bloomington

Tickets: $32.50 to $38.50

Box office number: (866) 686-9541

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Los muchachos

In addition to sax man, keyboardist and producer Steve Berlin, the Philly-born "honorary Chicano" interviewed for the accompanying story, Los Lobos is comprised of, from left:

• David Hidalgo, 54, singer-guitarist-accordionist-fiddler: founding member, also member of super-group Los Super Seven and Latin Playboys

• Cesar Rosas, 54, singer-guitarist: founding member, also member of Los Super Seven, noted for black sunglasses

• Steve Berlin

• Conrad Lozano, 57 singer-bassist: founding member, eldest member

• Louie Perez, 55, singer-guitarist-drummer: founding member, also member of Latin Playboys

Los albums

• Si Se Puede!, 1976

• Los Lobos Del Este De Los Angeles, 1978

• …And a Time to Dance, 1983

• How Will the Wolf Survive?, 1984

• La Bamba Soundtrack, 1987

• By the Light of the Moon, 1987

• La Pistola y El Corazón, 1988

• The Neighborhood, 1990

• Kiko, 1992

• Just Another Band From East L.A., 1993

• Music for Papa's Dream, 1995

• Colossal Head, 1996

• This Time, 1999

• Good Morning Aztlán, 2002

• The Ride, 2004

• Live at the Fillmore, 2005

• Acoustic En Vivo, 2005

• Wolf Tracks: Best of Los Lobos, 2006

• The Town and The City, 2006