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.

 

Marisol

Artist: Marisol

LP: 7" single

Song: "Corazón Contento"

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Here's a neat little 1968 Spanish number that I picked up at 10,000 Records in Barcelona back in August of 2018. My copy was badly warped, so when I tried to play it, the needle on my turntable was tossed to and fro...or maybe fro and to. Anyway, I finally got around to ordering a replacement copy—from Spain!—and it was waiting at my doorstep this evening when I got home from delivering mail in the snow!

Marisol was born on February 4, 1948, and was an international singing/dancing sensation by the time she was 11. She has appeared in a number of films, including BLOOD WEDDING and CARMEN, both directed by legendary Spanish filmmaker Carlos Saura. Marisol, who worked under the name Pepa Flores as an adult, retired from public life in 1985 and has reportedly worked for charitable causes ever since.

[ Pepa Flores, aka. Marisol ]

Sacha Distel

Artist: Sacha Distel

LP: 7" single

Song: "Adios Amigo"

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Song: "Mister Casanova"

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After work today I stopped by Golden Oldies Records to rummage through their Air Supply. Of course, according to the alphabet you have to go through ABBA to get to Air Supply, and for whatever lucky reason, somebody had plopped this Sacha Distel record right into the middle of ABBA...like, between the Bs: ABSachaDistelBA.I love any song that includes whistling, but even better if the song's in German with a Spanish chorus!

[ Sacha Distel: January 29, 1933 — July 22, 2004 ]

Olga Guillot

Artist: Olga Guillot

LP: La Mejor Voz Cancioonera de Cuba

Song: "Vivir De Los Recuerdos"

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Song: "Sin Mi"

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Song: "Estamos En Paz"

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I'm not 100% sure, but I think "I-Tunes" is the alternate title of this 1950s Olga Guillot LP, on which the lovely and talented Cuban songstress is accompanied by the Orchestra Hermanos Castro. 

As a music critic, the previous owner of this record sure was a tough nut to crack, finding just one five-star song in the bunch. As you can see, they somehow managed to enjoy one other track enough to assign it a three-star rating, but all of Olga's other tunes earned only one lone star apiece. To be honest, I can't tell the difference. I've included "Vivir De Los Recuerdos," the five-star number, here, along with two of my favorite one-star Olga Guillot songs. See what you think. 

Born in Santiago de Cuba in the autumn of 1922, Olga traveled to Mexico in 1948 and hit the big time there with her recording of "Mienteme" a few years later. She went on to travel the world, once performing in Cannes with the legendary Edith Piaf. In 1964, Guillot became the first Latin artist ever to sing at New York's Carnegie Hall. You can read more about Olga Guillot on Wikipedia here, and LP liner notes in Spanish and English are included below.

 [ Olga Guillot: October 9, 1922 — July 12, 2010 ]

Los Carabelas

Artist: Los Carabelas

LP: Los Carabelas

Song: "Asi Se Baila La Cumbia"

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Well, rats. I found all sorts of neat stuff in the Christmas used vinyl bins last month, but with six-day work weeks, the bustle of the holidays, and 11-to-12-hour workdays, my plan to regularly post things throughout the month of December failed to materialize. Guess I'll save them for next year, when I'll hopefully have two days off each week.

Here's something else I found in the bins last month—the dollar bins at Daybreak Records, to be exact. I figured I'd get an early start at my resolution to post here more regularly in 2020, and as a bonus it's nice to have at least one solid idea for my Halloween costume in the bag so early in the year! You can read (in Spanish) about Los Carabelas here.

Doris Day [1922-2019]

Artist: Doris Day

LP: Latin For Lovers
Song: "Be True to Me (Savor a Mi)"
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Song: "Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars (Corcovado)"

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I knew it would happen someday, and Doris had already been on Earth for 97 years, but some people live to be 113, right? I heard the sad news of Doris' death in the way I'd always I imagined I would. My radio alarm clock, set to NPR news, came on at 6:15am on Monday, May 13th, like any other day. After some other news I don't remember now, the morning host announced, "It's being reported that actress and singer Doris Day has died." My heart sank. I don't remember what came next, but later that morning, as I drove to work, I heard a more extensive biographical tribute to Day, one of my favorite ladies in the history of music, the movies, and the world.

It's a little strange to me that I became one of Doris Day's biggest fans. It all started about 20 years ago when I picked up a used paperback copy of her 1976 biography "Doris Day: Her Own Story" at a little junk shop in Raymond, WA on a road trip with my friend Marisa. I read the book, then began watching her movies, and started to look for her records and CDs. Her movies are not all excellent; some of her albums aren't all that great. But some of them are. And Doris is always superb. Her warmth, emotion, and an overall sense of enjoyment of life radiate from everything she does. 

My film recommendations would of course include hits like "Pillow Talk" (1959), "Love Me or Leave Me" (1955), "Send Me No Flowers" (1964), "It's a Great Feeling" (1949), Hitchcock's "The Man Who Knew Too Much" (1956), and "Calamity Jane" (1953). But I'd also suggest lesser-known titles like "Romance On the High Seas" (her first, in 1948), "Storm Warning" (a small-town noir from 1951 in which Doris turns up at a KKK rally in the woods - no kidding!), the bizarre and entertaining "Billy Rose's Jumbo" (1962), and "Move Over, Darling" (1963). 

My favorite Doris Day LP is this one, "Latin For Lovers," recorded in November of 1964 and released in the spring of 1965. By this time, Day's voice had matured into beautifully aching, purring, liquidy, velvety bliss. She really is at her best here; her voice is simply gorgeous. It's really a shame that this record was one of her last.

For me the sky may have lost one of its brightest stars, but it certainly has been a pleasure spending so much time on Earth along with Doris Day. You can read all about her life and career here, and find her obituary in The New York Times here. 

Doris Day

[ April 3, 1922 — May 13, 2019 ]

Golly, how we will miss you, Doris.

Facundo Rivero and His Quartet

Artist: Facundo Rivero and His Quartet

LP: Cha-Cha-Cha: The New Exciting Dance Rhythm From Cuba — double 7" EP

Song: "Negra Mi Cha-Cha-Cha"

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Here's a blast of cha-cha-cha from the middle of the 1950s, when it was a fresh new set of steps that challenged the mambo as the Latin dance of preference in American ballrooms across the land. There's not much to read about Facundo Rivero on the Internet (although I did unearth a handsome lad by that name who's got a Twitter account), but the musical Cuban Facundo Rivero was evidently a famous pianist and bandleader, born in Santa Clara, Cuba in 1910. According to this short Spanish language biography, Rivero played music in Cuba for a number of years, then went to Mexico in 1950, worked in a variety of countries, then landed in New York City for a while after 1959. He then alternated between New York and Miami, ultimately retiring to the warm climate of the Florida city. I find no mention of Facundo's death, so I can only assume he's still lazing around in the Miami sunshine and will be celebrating his 109th birthday at some point this year. 

Rivero is just one of the talented Cuban musicians springing the latest Latin dance craze on unsuspecting Americans in this double 7" EP that contains eight tracks simply bursting with cha-cha. Noro Morales, Ernesto Duarte, Tito Rodriguez and Al Castellanos are among some of the others. The ad on the back of the cover informs us that "EPs are the answer to 'The Music you want when you want it.'" I couldn't agree more. EPs are like the Spotify of 1955!

[ Facundo Rivero ]

Charles Aznavour [1924-2018]

Artist: Charles Aznavour

LP: Charles Aznavour Canta en Español, Volumen 2
Song: "Isabelle"
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Song: "Si Tu Me Llevas"
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I was bummed a few days ago to read that Charles Aznavour had died earlier this month, at the age of 94. Born in France of Armenian immigrant parents, Charles' birth name was Shahnour Vaghinag Aznavourian, which admittedly doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. With a career in music and film spanning over 70 years, Aznavour was one of the most popular performers in the history of France. People sometimes called him the French Frank Sinatra! Charles wrote more than 1,000 songs during his career, and he claims to be one of the first to write about controversial subjects like homosexuality, referring to his lovely/sad 1972 song "What Makes a Man?" Also, he often performed with Liza Minnelli, which is pretty gay too.

I was a little surprised to discover that I don't actually own any French-language records by this international legend—only one where he sings in English and two on which he's singing in Español. Here are a couple of songs from one of the latter. (I chose this one because he's smoking on the cover, so he at least looks really French even if he's not actually singing that way.) Click here to find everything you've ever wanted to know about the life and career of Snr Aznavour, and read his New York Times obituary here. And then go here for a photo of Charles when he was very young.

Charles Aznavour

[ May 22, 1924 — October 1, 2018 ]

We will miss you, Charles.

Los Pasos

Artist: Los Pasos

LP: 7" single

Song: "Te Quiero Porque Te Quiero"
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It was my last full day in Barcelona and I was feeling melancholy. I'd rented a bike at Ajo Bike the day before so I could be swept away on a bike ride with some new Spanish friends. 

[ My Barcelona Bike ]

We rode for miles up the coast to lay on a much-less-crowded beach than the ones that are located in the heart of downtown Barcelona. 

[ My Barcelona Beach ]

We didn't get back from the beach until after 7:30pm, and since the bike shop closed at 7, I had to cram my bike into my bedroom and then still had it to use the next day. One of my favorite Spanish adventures was riding my bike alone through the early-morning cobblestone streets of downtown Barcelona. I rode to a little shop and bought some candy to take back to my colleagues at work, and also visited the post office so I could send off some postcards I'd written over the course of my vacation. The post office in Barcelona is way fancier than the one in my neighborhood back home.

[ Barcelona Post Office — Outside & Inside ]

Later that evening, it was finally time to visit the last and final record store of my trip to Spain, though it was actually a store I'd already tried going to a few days before. According to the sign on the door during my first visit, the vacation was over at 10,000 Records and they would be open from 5-8pm that evening. Of course they didn't open at 5pm, so I walked around the block. They were open when I got back at 5:15, and in I went. 

I poked around in the LP bins for a bit and found a fairly outrageous 12" single worth keeping, but then I found a group of bins full of singles tucked into the corner and, since my time was limited, I turned my focus there. A friendly fellow was running the place that evening, and he had set up a little listening station on the counter by where he was standing. I picked up a bundle of singles (nearly 10,000 I'm sure), wondering all the while how on earth I was going to get all the records I'd purchased onto the plane without paying a number of substantial bribes. (I managed somehow, of course—thank god for the heavy-duty frozen-food shopping bag I picked up in Schenectady back in 2016.) 

One of the 10,000 Records I found is this 1969 release by Los Pasos, a Spanish band that was only around from 1966 to 1972. You can read about Los Pasos on Wikipedia in Spanish and English, where their style is characterized as a delicate balance of vocal games and instrumental predominance. 

[ Los Pasos]

[ 10,000 Records — Barcelona, Spain ]