The amount of enthusiastic responses to elWatusi continues to be pretty darn overwhelming. We really appreciate all of your emails and helpful suggestions. Every now and then, however, we get an email that is simply too unbelievable not to publish. Here’s one from DJ____@aol.com from right here in Brooklyn, NY:
Ummm…hate to break this to you, but most of these albums can be downloaded for FREE.
Why would I need to pay you or anyone for downloads?
Ya heard?
Somebody please tell me if this guy is joking or what?
First off, does he really believe that he’s enlightening us to the fact that illegal downloads take place? But, more to the point, does he really have so little a moral or ethical foundation that he feels the need to actually boast that he has no problem STEALING? Do I really need, in 2010, to wag a finger at this guy and enlighten him to the fact that, in addition to breaking the law, stealing music takes food off the table of artists, labels and everyone else working hard in this industry? And that doing so will simply stifle new releases and innovation? From his email address I assume the guy’s a DJ and makes his living off of the music. Oh, the irony.
Dumb all over.
Here’s a sneak peek of a few upcoming reissues from Fania and West Side that will appear on our homepage and may purchased on their respective release dates. Included below is the previously unrelased Willie Colón & Rubén Blades Siembra Live, a show from 1980 (Capitol Theatre in New Jersey) where they performed the songs from the iconic album. Click for Sneak Peek
Most of our playlists are of a, um, Latin bent. In an attempt to even things out, or, at least, to prove that we have some really cool other stuff, John Child has assembled a playlist of favorite material from Trinidad & Tobago.
“When looking through the Caribbean Groove section, it occurred to me that a Trini playlist may be in order. It’s largely drawn from the Caribbean Music Group label, which is essentially stuff that was released on or licensed by the Rituals label in T&T.” J.I. Child
The brainchild of Mathew Glass and his friend Tony, LP Cover Lover is a must-see blog of vintage LP and 45 covers. Broken down into organized categories like Big Heads, Bollywood, Cops and Convicts, etc. the site is well tagged and a truck-load of fun. Check out the racey Chicks dig records section. There’s enough cheesecake here to supply a weekend at Junior’s on Flatbush Ave. But there’s also some amazing art, like the covers designed by David Stone Martin (see his Lester Young masterpiece on Norgran Records). Excellent selection of Latin titles, too. Check these links: Bongos and Bagels, Latin, Latin Loco and Cha Cha Cha Mambo. While you’re on their site, buy one of their cool t-shirts.
Below is a cross section of random vintage Latin covers…
One of our favorite pastimes is to scour YouTube for weird or unusual videos that have at least some relation to this music. Not that many make the cut, but I came across this cool little tribute to La Reina, Celia Cruz, by pbabyj2000. Aside from the obvious huge amount of labor needed to produce a stop-motion video of this length, I really like her use of stills of Pacheco, India, Ralph Mercado, Tito Puente, Isidro Infante etc., and the fluctuating aspect ratio (keep your eyes on the edges), which gives this piece a extra layer of animation. Hope you like it too.
The near-perfect salsa choreography of the dolls is great, but the thing that got me were some of the still images that depicted a few of the above-mentioned icons at Puente’s, now closed, restaurant called Tito’s, on City Island in the Bronx. There you could count on great music and mediocre, overpriced, seafood.
I checked out the joint in ‘95 and got the chance to hang out with royal family of Salsa-Mambo. It was a good night. Below are a couple of my own snaps from that night. Pass the Pepto-Bismol. – elW
Tito Puente, India, promoters Jack Hooke and Ralph Mercado
A warm welcome to DJ Duste from Sweden. I’ve always admired his taste in really cool hard-to-find vinyl.
Dustin Anthony Hogg A.K.A (Dj Duste) born in Bombay, India raised in Brisbane, Australia loves to collect latin music specializing in especially vinyl records. Dustin is now based in Sweden, Stockholm and hosts the website salsamixes.com where you can sample a taste of his record library. In 2008 ‘Latin Soul Records’ directed by Andres Padua, produced a compilation with Dj Duste on 2 discs titled ‘Que Viva La Salsa Dura’. Dustin is also know for creating many custom mixes of vintage latin sounds for many dancers who perform till today to his productions. You can get a sample of his mixes on disc 2 on the compilation and also check out some more mixes on his website, which also features some of his work as a musician/percussionist. Click for The DJ Duste Playlist
John Child, elWatusi UK correspondent and living encyclopedia of Latin music, has just unveiled his mammoth 50 track playlist.
John is a music journalist, broadcaster and encyclopedist. He has been a contributor to the Descarga.com Latin music website since 1998. For totallyradio.com, John produces and selects the contents of the Latin music radio show Aracataca, presented by Tomek, and hosts the occasional “other Caribbean” show Sugar Jam. Aracataca is the UK’s first 100% authentic Latin music radio show, first launched on pirate radio in 1984 by Tomek. John wrote entries on Latin music, salsa, Latin jazz and calypso and soca for both editions of The Penguin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (1989 and 1998; now available on the internet as Donald Clarke’s Encyclopedia of Popular Music) and wrote all the Latin entries for the Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (1991). His work for BBC radio includes the six-part series Kaiso! Calypso and Kaiso Christmas, both 1996, and Jam’n'Wine (2005). He has written liner notes and prepared compilations for various labels, including Fania / Emusica, Union Square, Nascente and Soundway. Click for The John Child Playlist
Pablo Yglesias, aka DJ Bongohead, has gone beyond the call of duty this time. Here he has assembled a mega playlist of classic gems that must be heard. Here’s a partial Bongohead vitae:
Pablo Ellicott Yglesias is a Cuban-American graphic designer, artist, DJ, percussionist, exhibit curator, and writer. His book Cocinando: 50 Years of Latin Album Cover Art was published in 2005 by Princeton Architectural Press. He has written for Latin Beat, Hispanic, Descarga, and Wax Poetics, and was a guest curator for the traveling exhibition “American Sabor” for The Experience Music Project museum, Seattle. In addition he curated the Latin album cover art show “Viva La Música” for Exit Art in New York, NY. He has compiled albums for The Rough Guide, Vampi Soul, Fania/Codigo, and Nascente. He has designed albums for Captol Blue Note, RMM, Vampi Soul and many independent artists. Click for The DJ Bongohead Playlist
