Alberto Vazquez

 Artist: Alberto Vázquez

LP: Rock y Baladas con Alberto Vázquez

Song: "16 Toneladas"

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Song: "Olvidalo"

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Song: "El Hombre Araña"

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Does everyone remember my Alberto Vázquez post from back in April of 2017? Great! Well, here's another one. I was thrilled...THRILLED, I tell you, to find another of Alberto's LPs last week, this one at Daybreak Records over in Fremont. This 1974 offering is yet another delectable mixture of cover songs, in both English and Spanish, along with (I'm fairly sure) some original tunes thrown in too for good measure. 

 

There are still tons (16 toneladas, to be exact) of Alberto Vázquez records to be on the lookout for, as you can see for yourselves at his discography listing on Wikipedia here. Alberto was 77 when I last featured him here on the blog, and now...well, next month, he'll be turning 81! Here's to many more years of good health, happiness, and music from Sñr. Vazquez in the decade to come. 

 

PS. Earlier this week was "National Women's Day," which I had every intention of celebrating here...yet so far all I've posted are records by people named Oscar and Alberto. I promise this will be rectified in the days to come.

 

Magda Franco

Artist: Magda Franco

LP: La Rosa Negra

Song: "Pidele a Dios" (horns and organ version)
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Song: "Pidele a Dios" (guitar and vocals version)
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This is annoying. My crappy mp3 conversion turntable sometimes makes you choose between instrumentation or vocals, whereas on my living room console, the vocals and organ accompaniment blend together in perfect harmony. Anyway, the first version posted here features some nice organ and horn with Magda's muted murmurings, and the second version features Magda loud and clear with guitar good and strong...and if you listen with all your might, you might hear the faded organ and horns in the distant background, as if they're being played over at the neighbors. There's no information about Magda Franco on the internet. All we know is that she has incredible taste in clothes and hair.

[ Magda Franco ]

Alberto Vazquez

Artist: Alberto Vazquez

LP: Como No Creer...

Song: "Spring Again"
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Song: "Como No Creer En Dios"
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I'm not usually the matchmaker type, but something tells me Alberto would get along really well with Patsy. One thing I admire about Latino men is that even some of the straight ones decorate their homes in a style I call "wedding-cake chic." You have to have a lot of confidence to do wedding-cake chic successfully and, as one can tell from his facial expressions on both sides of this LP, lacking confidence has never been an issue for Alberto.

There's not much written on Wikipedia in English about actor-singer Alberto Vazquez, but if you go to his Spanish-language page the whole world opens up to you. Alberto celebrated his 77th birthday ten days ago; his "Como No Creer..." LP came out in 1978, when he was 38 years old. "Spring Again" is the sole English-language track on the record; the rest of the songs are sung in español.

[ Alberto Vazquez ]

Los Tres Caballeros

Artist: Los Tres Caballeros

LP: Los 3 Caballeros

Song: "Volvere a Buscarte"
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Here's another one from my favorite classic Mexican trio—Roberto Cantoral, Benjamin Pérez de León and Leonel Gálvez Polanco. You can read about them as The Three Knights here (I suppose that does sound a bit classier than "The Three Cowboys") and then find Spanish-language liner notes included below.

[ Roberto Cantoral — Benjamin Pérez de León — Leonel Gálvez Polanco ]
[ Los Tres Caballeros ]

Laura León

Artist: Laura León

LP: El Fuego Del Tropico Hecho Mujer

Song: "Aprovechame"
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Song: "Los Carnavales"
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This record's so hot I almost burned my fingers on it while thumbing through the Latin section of my collection this afternoon. Still going strong at 63, actress/singer Laura León of Tabasco, Mexico was reportedly once going steady with porn legend Peter North, who reportedly doesn't let people touch his hair during sex because it makes him lose his concentration. 'Aprovechame!'...but hands off the hairdo.

[ Laura León ]

Hermanas Aguila

Artist: Hermanas Aguila

LP: Algo Diferente - Vol. II
Song: "De Colores"
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Song: "Algo Tonto" 
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Work has been pretty stressful lately. Today in the men's room there was a young man standing at the urinal who was using both his hands to send text messages on his phone while at the same time as he was urinating hands-free! This only added to my stress, somehow, and also made me wonder how many text messages I've received from men standing at urinals with their wieners out. Anyway, I'm finally back at home, and I'm relaxing to the grandmotherly Guadalajarian warblings of Hermanas Aguila, who do a lovely rendition of "Something Stupid." You can read about these beguiling Mexican ladies in English here and there's even more about them in español here. 

[ Marias Esperanza y Paz = Hermanas Aguila ]

Anacani

Artist: Anacani

LP: Por Que Te Olvidas De Mi
Song: "Por Que Te Olvidas De Mi"
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I headed north on a little out-of-town getaway last weekend and ended up in the quaint little town of Mount Vernon for breakfast. After my omelet, hashbrowns and toast came shopping at Lost In the Groove, a little record shop on Main Street where I found quite a few neat things, including this 1975 Anacani record. Born in Sinaloa, Mexico in April of 1954, Anacani kept being discovered by various people, including Lawrence Welk! She started singing regularly at the Lawrence Welk Resort in Escondido, California and then began making regular appearances on The Lawrence Welk Show, which made regular appearances on my Norwegian Grandma Bea's television set when I was at her house as a tot in the 1970s. Fortunately for everyone, the lovely Mexican singer had shortened her name from Anacani Maria Consuelo y Castillo Lopez Cantor Montoya to simply 'Anacani' before the kindly Scandinavian bandleader had to introduce her on his show. You can find Anacani performing on The Lawrence Welk Show at the link below, and go here to read more about this talented lady. 

ps. DivShare seems to be busted for good, so I've switched to SendSpace for listening to this and other recent tracks. After following the link, ignore the ads and big 'download' buttons and just click on the text in the light blue box in the center of the page. You should then be able to listen to the music with the media player of your choice. Oh, and Happy 4th of July!

Anacani on YouTube:
[ "Flying Down to Rio" ]

 

[ Lost In the Groove Records — Mt. Vernon, WA ]

Cepillin

Artist: Cepillin

LP: En Un Bosque De La China

Song: "Bailando Feliz" 
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Song: "Pan Con Mantequilla" 
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It's hard to imagine who could possibly have been intended as the target audience for this record. You've got a sexy hippie rock-star type wearing silk pajamas and half-assed clown makeup doing covers of classics by the Bee Gees and The Newbeats. Fun for the whole family, right? It turns out Cepillin (or, the artist formerly known as Ricardo González) was a dentist who started wearing funny face makeup so kids wouldn't be scared while he went to work on their teeth. But I can't think of anything more nightmare-inducing than a shaggy, falsetto-voiced hippie clown towering over me with a grin while giving me a root canal. 

Cepillin on YouTube:
[ "La Feria de Cepillin" ]

[ The dentist will see you now. ]

Dueto Estrella

Artist: Dueto Estrella

LP: A-Go-Go En El Norte

Song: "Estas Llorando" 
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Not "A-Go-Go" exactly, the music on this various-artists LP from Mexico is filled with what we might instead call "Rancher-Ro-Ro." There's not much info about Dueto Estrella on the web, but we know these fellows' first names are Abel and Bernardo and that they recorded on the Eco label, a subsidiary of Falcon Records, which was founded by Arnaldo Ramírez in McAllen, Texas in 1948, according to what I just read here. "A-Go-Go En El Norte" was released in 1967 and features 40 minutes of the most popular music from the Eco label. I found my copy for $2.50 at Easy Street Records and Cafe last Saturday after a delicious breakfast.

 

[ Dueto Estrella: Abel y Bernardo ]

Carlos Lico

Artist: Carlos Lico

LP: 7" single

Song: "Pobre Millonario"

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Today at work my colleagues were saying what a shame it was that Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning has a salary of $18,000,000 a year, while Russell Wilson, quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks (aka-The Super Bowl Champions of the Year), only earns an annual salary of $800,000. ¡Pobre Millonario! You can read about Mexican crooner Carlos Lico in español here and here. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any information about Lico's annual salary.

[ Carlos Lico: January 2, 1933 — November 7, 2009 ]

The Mexicali Brass

Artist: The Mexicali Brass

LP: Winter Wonderland

Song: "Winter Wonderland"

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There's currently no snow in Seattle (we had some last Friday morning!), but it is winter now and it's definitely a wonderland outside. I took a break from wrapping presents earlier this morning to take a short Christmas walk to get some Christmas coffee. I'd only gone a few blocks when I unwittingly wandered into wonderland: An elderly man who was cater-corner across the street, dressed in warm winter attire and with a tiny doggie on a leash, was loudly and repeatedly yelling something in a foreign language. I think he may have been Eastern European. As I drew closer, I saw that, in addition to the small dog at the end of his leash, he had five other tiny little doggies with him that were not on leashes. When I saw them, they saw me too and came dashing eagerly and recklessly to my side of the street. All of them were wearing bright doggie-sweaters, each a different color, and they yapped happily while circling around me as I continued down the sidewalk. Passing cars came to a stop in the street so as to not run the dogs over, and the elderly man continued shouting in his foreign language, trying to lure the dogs back across the street and through the door of his large white pickup. It was thrilling to be walking, even for just a few seconds, smack dab in the middle of a winter wonderland: I wonder why one dog was on a leash but the other five were not; I wonder what language that man was speaking; I wonder if all the doggies made it safely into that man's white truck; I wonder where that man found all those cute and colorful winter doggie sweaters; I wonder if he or any of his doggies realize that they totally made my day.