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Mexican-American Border Music Vol. I
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Buy It Now!
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Historic performances (1928-1964) by pioneer Mexican-American recording artists. These singers and musicians (accordionists, fiddlers, guitarists, orchestras, mariachis and conjuntos) helped popularize and perpetuate a number of the traditions which today constitute the roots of Mexican-American music. Includes 36-page booklet with notes & texts.
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Listen to some of the tracks!! (uses RealAudio®) 1. Es Un Capricho - Bruno Villareal 2. Corrido De Pennsylvania - Pedro Rocha/Lupe Martinez 3. Aunque En Miles Calles Vivas - La Familia Mendoza 4. La Pollita - Narciso Martinez/Santiago Almeida 5. Piensa En Mi - Lydia Mendoza 6. Viva Laredo - El Ciego Melquiades 7. Peregrina - Los Hermanos Chavarria 8. La Cucaracha - Orquesta Pajaro Azul 9. Jesusita - Pedro Rocha/Lupe Martinez 10. Jesusita En Chihuahua - Orquesta Del Norte 11. Nunca Te Creas - Los Madrugadores 12. Ella Es Mi Delirio - Andres Berlanga/Francisco Montalvo 13. Sueno En Rio Grande - Las Hermanas Padilla 14. La India Bonita - Banda Tipica Mazatlan 15. Que Me Gano Con Llorar - Conjunto Trio San Antonio 16. La Cubanita - Santiago Jimenez 17. El Rancho Grande - Santiago Jimenez 18. Sin Tu Carino - Valerio Longoria 19. Cancion Mixteca - Los Donnenos 20. Por Esos Montes (La Primavera) - Los Nortenos with Mariachi 21. El Guero Estrada - Los Alegres De Teran 22. A Punaladas - Los Hermanos Prado 23. Vete De Mi - Los Tremendos Gavilanes 24. Postas De Retrocarga - Las Hermanas Degollado 25. Gregorio Cortez - Los Hermanos Banda 26. El Chicano - Los Nortenos De Nuevo Laredo |
REVIEWS “The best news is that Folklyric's LP series `Una historia de la musica de la frontera' is being revamped and reissued on CD. Volume one was one of the most varied and interesting of the original series introducing many of us to such giants of the music as Lydia Mendoza, Narciso Martinez and El Ciego Melquiades. Its across-the-board approach gathered in canciones, corridos, rancheras, polkas, waltzes, and boleros to produce a fascinating overview of the period 1928 - 1958. The CD has been extended to 26 tracks (74:40) and those original tracks since issued on other CDs have been replaced by other performances by the same artists.”(Keith Briggs — Blues & Rhythm) |
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“The colorful threads of authentic Mexican-American music have been woven into many contemporary song styles, classical to pop, that their rural sources are often hard to trace. Now a small company in El Cerrito, Calif., is reissuing an array of vintage Tejano recordings that will delight record collectors as well as students of Hispanic-American culture, giving listeners clues to the origins of Tex-Mex.
`Pioneer Recording Artists 1928-1958' is the first in Arhoolie Records' series of CDs devoted to Mexican-American Border music. It was produced and edited by Chris Strachwitz, a collector who specializes in preserving early recorded sounds of Hispanic music and performing artists. All 26 cuts on the CD come from Strachwitz's own hard-won collection of 78s and 45s which originally were intended for play on home turntables or commercial jukeboxes. Most of the offerings represent the Texas-Mexican border area and the dynamic Norteño and Conjunto music that developed there on either side of the Rio Grande. The majority originally were recorded in San Antonio, Texas or Monterrey, Nuevo Leon respectively the US and Mexican centers for this music. Solo accordionists, fiddlers, guitarists and vocalists, as well as ensembles such as mariachi and conjuntos norteños all contribute to the series' lively mix. Strachwitz says he emphasized rural singers and their songs rather than urban composers and performers. The result is a collection of exuberant, passionate and often raw renderings of country dances and ballads, such as `Jesusita' a typical cantina love song of the 1930s, which describes the songwriter's courtship of a beautiful 15-year-old girl who agrees to marry him only from March 27 to April 27. `With that I bid farewell, little white lily flower,' sings Pedro Rocha and Lupe Martinez (ca. 1934). `Here end the verses composed for Jesusita.' Perhaps the most significant performer on the album is Houston-born Lydia Mendoza, a pioneer Mexican-American who was popular with many Spanish-speaking populations. Record collectors unfamiliar with conjunto music may be perplexed by dance formssuch as the polka, waltz and mazurkathat don't `sound Spanish.' Even the most insulated musical communities were influenced by foreign immigrants, particularly the Germans and Czechs who settled in south Texas and northern Mexico in the late 19th century.” (Ann McCutchan — Chicago Sun Times & Gannett News Service) |
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“Emphasizing rural rather than urban styles, and thus the Rio Grande valley over California, most of the 26 selections are resurfacing for the first since their original 78 or 45 releases on labels like Del Valle, Oro, Bronco, Falcon, Rio, Blue Bird, Imperial and Corona. Rather irritatingly, given the nature of the concept, they're not in chronological sequence, and, when even 1958 seems a little late to justify the word `pioneer,' two tracks, Los Alegres De Teran's `El Guero Estrada' and Los Norteños De Nuevo Laredo's `El Chicano,' were cut in 1964, with four others from 1960. In fact, after Orquesta Del Norte's `Jesusita En Chihuahua,' recorded in El Paso in 1928, and Pedro Rocha & Lupe Martinez's 1929 `Corrido de Pennsylvania,' there's a jump to a 1933-38 clutch, opening with Los Madrugadores of Los Angeles and including Los Hermanos Chavarria, Orquesta Pajaro Azul (`La Cucaracha!'), Bruno Villareal, Lydia Mendoza (`Piensa En Mi,' there's a great picture of her, with Eli Oberstein, recording in San Antonio's Texas Hotel), El Ciego Melquiades (The Blind Fiddler, one of the last representatives of a now long defunct Mexican string band tradition), La Familia Mendoza, Narciso Martinez & Santiago Almeida, Andres Berlanga & Francisco Montalvo and the West Coast's Las Hermanas Padilla. Santiago Jimenez opens a postwar group with his 1948 `El Rancho Grande,' followed by Banda Tipica Mazatlan, a big brass band whose style, though much corrupted, is currently enjoying enormous popularity in California, Los Norteños, Jimenez again (`La Cubanita'), Conjunto Trio San Antonio and Valerio Longoria. From 1951, we jump again to 1958, Los Hermanos Banda's terrific version of the classic corrido `Gregorio Cortez,' then to 1960 for Los Donnenos, Los Hermanos Prado, Los Tremendos Gavilanes and, my favorite track on the album, Las Hermanas Degollado's `Postas De Retrocarga' (Shotgun Shells). Ranging from historically interesting to absolutely marvellous, this uncharacteristically jumbled collection supplements but certainly doesn't displace Smithsonian Folkways' Borderlands CD. ”
(John Conquest — Music City News) |
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