Music that hit you

[robert angel]

I think most of us have memories and events--certain times, that we relate songs to.

Are there some songs that resonate in your head?

AC DC is probably best known for 'Back in Black', and they admit their songs by and large sound the same--as Angus Young put it a while back:

"I'm sick and tired of people saying that we put out 11 albums that sound exactly the same. In fact, we've put out 12 albums that sound exactly the same."

But if there's one tune I've seen bring people out on the dance floor all around the world--one tune that straight from the crotch and that often, mixed with alcohol, led to sex--it's  this one--the 'American' reference defies geography....   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo2qQmj0_h4

One tune that goes back before I was really even 'dating age' but seems to put the whole male--female thing in perspective to me anyway is this:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bD9t44JUD4 

There's some live in concert videos where the band really pulled it off well too

I probably have a song or two for most of the women I was involved with for any length of time, but those two are right up there--what about you guys?

[utopiacowboy]

Well with the crowd that I've been running with the one song that is guaranteed to fill the dance floor is "Suavemente" by Elvis Crespo. It is impossible for any Latina to sit still for this song.

[robert angel]

Well with the crowd that I've been running with the one song that is guaranteed to fill the dance floor is "Suavemente" by Elvis Crespo. It is impossible for any Latina to sit still for this song.

That was a monster hit--I think it almost broke into the mainstream billboard top 100 and it killed on the Latin charts for quite a while.

[robert angel]

A song that had legs worldwide was OutKast's Hey Ya! I remember being in a remote area of the Philippines, visiting some volcanic hot springs about three hours from any city, in an area pretty much controlled by the communists.

Anyway, we were going by a nipa hut--a bamboo shack up on stilts--no electricity, no plumbing. But someone inside had a battery powered boombox and was blasting that song. I like the tune, but always remember seeing just how 'globally' popular it was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWgvGjAhvIw

[Gavan]

Most of the music I like is in Spanish.


Here is what I am listening to at the moment.


Grupo 5 - Apostemos Que Me Caso (Peru)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-5lYGQOHNg


Rafaga - Una Cerveza (Argentina)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWdgWNiIV0o


Los Hermanos Medina - LLora Por Amor (Colombia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7QjH-UDXSY


Americo - Entre El Odio y el Amor (Chile)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGB5zZxXScw


Daddy Yankee - Sigueme y Te Sigo (Puerto Rico)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHwXr7XzPXY

Wisin ft Carlos Vives and Daddy Yankee - Nota de Amor (Puerto Rico and Colombia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phzOo-1OE48

 

[robert angel]

There's a song--number 374 in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs: Ritchie Valens "La Bamba" which came out in the late 50's before I was even born, but between it and Los Lobos version, pretty much everyone's heard and still knows the song. Not everyone knows that it was a traditional, regional Mexican folk song before Valens and his tasty guitar work, 'popped it up'.

It was the first pop hit that was completely in a foreign language. But before that, he had a bigger hit, sung in English: 'Donna" (Oh... Donna) that charted even higher, at #2 on the US Top 40. La Bamba was the B side on the 45 record.

Born in the USA to Mexican-Indian parents, Valens didn't even speak fluent Spanish, speaking instead what folks call 'Spanglish'--I guess it's kinda funny then that not knowing Spanish, a lot of N. Americans make up their own words to the catchy tune.

But 'B side' or not, he's best remembered for La Bamba, which I hear is still played quite a bit in Veracruz Mexico, from which region Valens' sound was influenced

Valens was only 17 when he died in a plane crash, along with Billy Holly and The Big Bopper. Don't think that until Freddy Fender came along much later, that a Latino made such a crossover  impact on the US pop music market.

[Gavan]

Not everyone knows that it was a traditional, regional Mexican folk song before Valens and his tasty guitar work, 'popped it up'.

The original La Bamba. I have a Mexicana friend who knows that dance.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJt3xfRL0Eg


Another folk song from Veracruz, Mexico that I like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-Llw1BESFY

[michaelb]

Yes, it is a traditional song from Veracruz.  There's a traditional dance and costumes that go with it.


short video with costumes and dance    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xua3Dweynto


This next one is taken on the street in Veracruz. I think the pink building in the background is know as "Los Portales" and has a bunch of bars with indoor and outdoor seating. The green sign at the end of the building is the entrance to a hotel, I stayed there (too many) years ago and fell in love with the day shift desk clerk. Can't quite make out the sign in the video, but at the time it was "Hotel Mexico"      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMyZMj5WPo


OK, technically this one is a different song, but it's in the same genre, and the little kids are doing a great job.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2utGH3IMUc

[Gavan]

Well with the crowd that I've been running with the one song that is guaranteed to fill the dance floor is "Suavemente" by Elvis Crespo. It is impossible for any Latina to sit still for this song.

This is my favorite Elvis Crespo song:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRcRqITueec


This merengue song was a big hit in Peru when I was living there:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JfjzoSteAo


Another merengue song I like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqWMR-Pujxc


It is actually a cover of a Peruvian cumbia song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b9vLY3Kt0Q 

[Gavan]

OK, technically this one is a different song, but it's in the same genre, and the little kids are doing a great job.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2utGH3IMUc

Yeah, my amiga knows that one too, I remember that song.


The costumes of the dancers remind me a bit of the Peruvian "marinera" dance (although the music is totally different)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMqP0gL5-YA

[michaelb]

Does pretty well for a woman with no shoes......I imagine it's actually much harder to dance with no shoes. Yes, the woman's dress is similar, but the man's costume, particularly with that hat, is almost (but not quite) a zoot suit, if you know what that is (or even if you don't    know). All in all, they were very good.

[Gavan]

Does pretty well for a woman with no shoes......I imagine it's actually much harder to dance with no shoes. Yes, the woman's dress is similar, but the man's costume, particularly with that hat, is almost (but not quite) a zoot suit, if you know what that is (or even if you don't    know). All in all, they were very good.

Yeah I was mostly talking about the woman's dress. The man's suit and the dance itself are pretty different.


This dance is from northern Peru. During my time in Peru I lived in a city called Trujillo which is known as "la Capital de la Marinera".

[robert angel]

Yes, it is a traditional song from Veracruz.  There's a traditional dance and costumes that go with it.


short video with costumes and dance    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xua3Dweynto


This next one is taken on the street in Veracruz. I think the pink building in the background is know as "Los Portales" and has a bunch of bars with indoor and outdoor seating. The green sign at the end of the building is the entrance to a hotel, I stayed there (too many) years ago and fell in love with the day shift desk clerk. Can't quite make out the sign in the video, but at the time it was "Hotel Mexico"      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDMyZMj5WPo


OK, technically this one is a different song, but it's in the same genre, and the little kids are doing a great job.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2utGH3IMUc

That's great stuff! Where I live in the South Eastern USA--and probably a whole lot of other places around the world, they use that 'La Bamba' song rhyme--line relentlessly in radio and TV ads. The most played ad around us--you can't seem to escape it, goes like:

'Won't you come buy a Honda--won't you come buy a Honda --Oh yes you will--won't you come buy a Honda-----I love my Honda, I love my Honda..."

Bet nobody south of the border's getting a peso each time it's played either.

Compare USA copyright law and the song "Happy Birthday" which itself was a blatant rip-off of the traditional school greeting song--Good Morning to all (which ripped off, "Happy Greetings to All")
 
Good morning to you,
Good morning to you,
Good morning, dear children,
Good morning to all
Copyrighted in 1935, if a movie or radio station --really any public, commercial  performance, plays 'Happy Birthday to You' it pays big time. A Time Warner company that owns it still makes over two million dollars a year in royalties from it!

Poor ex Police front man Sting--and the song that almost broke up the band: "Every Breath You Take"--as of 2003, twenty years after release, that song was only  averaging about $2000 a day in royalties for him! Not bad though, for a song Sting himself says is about paranoia, obsession and stalking!

>>""Sting later said he was disconcerted by how many people think the song is more positive than it is. He insists it's about the obsession with a lost lover, and the jealousy and surveillance that follow. Sting said:"One couple told me 'Oh we love that song; it was the main song played at our wedding!' I thought, 'Well, good luck.'"<<

I just wish I'd copyrighted "Let's get ready to rumble! --THOSE five words alone, have earned Michael Buffer over a hundred million dollars!

[Gavan]

Where I live in the South Eastern USA--and probably a whole lot of other places around the world, they use that 'La Bamba' song rhyme--line relentlessly in radio and TV ads.

Here is an ad for Nescafe from the 80's (not sure if it was shown in the US) that uses another famous latin song.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4CT61YLKsE


They use the Colombian version in the ad (which is more famous):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nigHivBKBCU


It was written by Peruvian composer Walter Leon. This is the original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX4CNiE-UE

[robert angel]

Here is an ad for Nescafe from the 80's (not sure if it was shown in the US) that uses another famous latin song.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4CT61YLKsE


They use the Colombian version in the ad (which is more famous):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nigHivBKBCU


It was written by Peruvian composer Walter Leon. This is the original version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqX4CNiE-UE

Dunno why they even advertise Nescafe--in some places, instead of ordering "coffee" you can say "I'll have a Nescafe" and they'll bring out any ole coffee--the two are synonymous --sort of like how saying "Xerox that for me" means "make me a copy."

Then again--maybe that's WHY they advertise. Nescafe is well known in the USA, but that Swiss brand is much better known elsewhere across the globe

And why Coco Cola sends people into Taco Bell and other 'Pepsi places' to order a "Coke" and if they don't say "We carry Pepsi" they get a letter from Coca Cola's lawyers.

I should've got a copyright on the hole in the ground dug to take a dump.....

[michaelb]

Remember the SNL skit about the lunch counter? I think it was called Olympic Grill. All they sold was cheeseburgers and Pepsi.


Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger, no Coke, Pepsi, cheeseburger. No tuna salad, hey you, what you want? You want a cheeseburger?

[JamesDonut]

Valens was only 17 when he died in a plane crash, along with Billy Holly and The Big Bopper. Don't think that until Freddy Fender came along much later, that a Latino made such a crossover  impact on the US pop music market.

It's hard to argue that La Bamba isn't the most influential latin pop/rock tune of all time.  However Freddy Fender in the rock/pop didn't make much of a dent (pun intended).  I'm not much of an expert or historian about Country music, so I can't talk to much about the country side.  Rock and Pop I can talk about, so here is what came to my mind.

From the American perspective and Latins in rock music, Tequila by the Champs hit #1 in 1958.  In the 1960's there were few hits from Latin artists.  The biggest ones that I recall:

 1962 Chris Montez - Let's Dance
1966 Chris Montez - Call Me
1967 Los Bravos-Black is Black
(Los Bravos were from Spain.  So not technically Latin.)
1968 Jose Feliciano - Light My Fire

By the end of the 60's though, who can forget about Carlos Santana! 

Santana at Woodstock

[robert angel]

It's hard to argue that La Bamba isn't the most influential latin pop/rock tune of all time.  However Freddy Fender in the rock/pop didn't make much of a dent (pun intended).  I'm not much of an expert or historian about Country music, so I can't talk to much about the country side.  Rock and Pop I can talk about, so here is what came to my mind.

From the American perspective and Latins in rock music, Tequila by the Champs hit #1 in 1958.  In the 1960's there were few hits from Latin artists.  The biggest ones that I recall:

 1962 Chris Montez - Let's Dance
1966 Chris Montez - Call Me
1967 Los Bravos-Black is Black
(Los Bravos were from Spain.  So not technically Latin.)
1968 Jose Feliciano - Light My Fire

By the end of the 60's though, who can forget about Carlos Santana! 

Santana at Woodstock

It's like arguing ('arguing' not being the right word, because I sense you have well versed, excellent musical tastes across genres, James) but it's kind of like debating who's the best hitter of all time in baseball? Percentage on base? Hitting 400 like Ted, or 'The Babe'?

But while Fender isn't in (if I had one) list of 20 most influential and great musical artists, he did have an impact that made others realize that they too, could 'hit it big'. He was a success despite his self destructive ways.

>>In 1974 Fender recorded "Before the Next Teardrop Falls." The single was selected for national distribution and became a number one hit on the Billboard Country and Pop charts. It sold over a million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the R.I.A.A. in May 1975.[4] His next three singles, "Secret Love," "You'll Lose a Good Thing" and a remake of "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights", all reached number-one on the Billboard Country charts. Between 1975 and 1983, Fender charted 21 country hits, including "Since I Met You Baby," "Vaya con Dios," "Livin'It Down," and "The Rains Came." "Wasted Days and Wasted Nights" became Fender's second million-selling single, with the gold disc presentation taking place in September 1975.[4]

Fender also was successful on the pop charts. Besides "Before the Next Teardrop Falls" reaching number 1 on the pop charts in May 1975, "Wasted Days And Wasted Nights" went into the pop top 10 and "Secret Love" into the top 20. "Since I Met You Baby", "You'll Lose A Good Thing" (his last pop top 40), "Vaya con Dios", and "Livin' It Down" (his last to reach the pop top 100) all did well on the pop charts.

While notable for his genre-crossing appeal, several of Fender's hits featured verses or choruses in Spanish. Bilingual songs seldom hit the pop charts, and when they did it was because of novelty. Bilingual songs reaching the country charts was even more unusual<<

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddy_Fender#Number_one_on_pop_and_country_charts

[robert angel]

What's with Gene Pitney often being credited with 'Black is Black'? Sort of an 'urban legend'--

Yea--Santana was very influential. My son has taken several of Santana's songs and composed lengthily saxophone solos (Notably Black Magic Woman and Oye Como Va) , that along with his band, literally have the crowds standing. Funny thing is, those songs, along with countless jazz tunes he eats up, were all done years before he was even born. LOL. Funny thing--first standing ovation was for the then improvised solo for Oye Como Va that he performed in 8th grade at a school assembly that had both and their parents standing. Afterwards, I went up to him and stuck a $20 bill in his shirt pocket and said: "That was pretty good son--consider this your first paying gig." 

The avatar pic of him was right before he played the Westin Harbor Golf Resort Spa last month, for a bunch of suits.

 

Right now, in exchange for me buying him some advanced jazz improv books and DVD lessons, he's working on adapting his sax to improve on several of the late, great Marvin Gaye's standards, including "What's Going On" and 'Mercy, Mercy Me", putting in sax parts that aren't in the originals.

Guess we'd better be careful, pharrell and robin thicke were found guilty of plagiarizing "Blurred Lines" and have to pay the Gaye estate 7.4 million dollars! And now, the same legal team is looking very, very closely at Pharrel's monster hit 'Happy'!

[michaelb]

Freddy Fender also often played in a group called The Texas Tornados........, with Flaco Jimenez,  Augie Meyers and Doug Sahm (the "Douglas" in the Sir Douglas Quintet of the 1960's).




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7R13MFULyqg




OK, I'll try again, maybe this time the letters will all be the same size and the link will be there.

[JamesDonut]

Robert you got it man.  Nothing against Fender.  I just have a bad habit of making fun of Country artists. 

You did however make me look him up.  As I have heard the name but never remember having heard any of his music.  I just took a listen to Before the Next Teardrop falls, and it is a great tune.   Don't know how I could have missed it amongst my music studies.  That's the great thing about music and its history.  There is always something new that has been skipped over or missed.  Thanks for the heads up.