Our musical journey around the Americas is finally beginning, and as Andy Cameron might put it: "we're on the march wi' Ernie's army, we're going to the Argentine".
Unlike Ally's Tartan Army we're not off to win the World Cup, just to find musical gold. I think we have done it, although I had to sit through quite a lot of drab 1-1 draws with Iran before I found the aural equivalents of Archie Gemmill's wonder goal below.
We can't visit Argentina without taking in some tango, so we will start there. Astor Piazzolla pretty much invented nuevo tango in the 1950s, adding elements of jazz and classical music to traditional tango. He also scandalised polite society by playing the bandoneon standing up not sitting down. Today's track was first released in 1960 but can be found on plenty of compilations, and there's more Astor in the videos.
Astor may have caused a stir when he first burst onto the scene but by 1960 the hep cats in Buenos Aires were hankering for the groovy new sounds filtering down from further north. Which explains the success of Johny Tedesco whose 1961 single "Rock Del Tom Tom" is considered to be the first Argentinian rock 'n roll record. Johny went on to make bad films and country albums - if not quite the Argentine Elvis at least the Argentine Johnny Hallyday.
A few years passed and Johny suffered the same fate as Astor. The hep cats kept getting hepper and in the mid 1960s some of them formed a band called Los Gatos (presumably the word 'hep' does not have a direct equivalent in Spanish). Their big rivals locally were Los Beatniks.
We haven't got either of them. Instead we have the band that Pajarito Zaguri of Los Beatniks formed next, the mighty La Barra De Chocolate. This little sizzler can be found on their self-titled (and only album) from 1969, available on Bandcamp thanks to the good folks over at Munster Records.
As sure as night turns into day, the psychedelic rockers of the 1960s turned into weedy Cañón Laurel singer-songwriters in the early 1970s. Pre-eminent amongst them was Sui Generis. We've chosen the opening track from their 1972 album "Vida", once ranked by Rolling Stone as #11 in a list of the 100 most outstanding songs in Argentinian rock. Judge for yourselves.
Los Fabulosos Cadillacs are one of the most successful Argentinian bands, having achieved multiple gold records since they started in 1984. They also won a Grammy for their album "Fabulosos Calavera" in 1997, becoming the first Argentinian act to win a Grammy outside the classical (Daniel Barenboim) and jazz (Lalo Schifrin) categories. We have the title track from their 1989 album "El Satánico Dr. Cadillac" for you.
Next up is a singer that I was lucky enough to see live back in 2019 and would love to see again - La Yegros. Her Bandcamp blurb puts it better than I ever could: "Her incredible live concerts are a challenge thrown at those who do not have dancing feet. The singer never fails to unlock even the stiffest bodies, her energy radiating as if she was spitting balls of fire". Today's choice is from 2016's "Magnetismo" album.
Juana Molina is a rather different kettle of fish, being more at the electronic and experimental end of the pop scene in Argentina, but she can ride a groove as well as anyone when she puts her mind to it. The title track from her 2008 album "Un Dia" may well be the pick of today's bunch.
We finish as we mean to continue (if you follow me) with some MAR - Mandatory American Reggae. Los Pericos have been knocking about since 1988 when their debut album went triple platinum. We've opted for the title track from their 1994 album "Big Yuyo". 1994 was also the year they headlined at the Sunsplash festival in Jamaica, so they must have been doing something right.
"Tanguisimo" - Astor Piazzolla
"Rock Del Tom Tom" - Johny Tedesco
"Buenos Aires Beat" - La Barra De Chocolate
"Canción Para Mi Muerte" - Sui Generis
"El Satánico Dr. Cadillac" - Los Fabulosos Cadillacs
"Carnabailito" - La Yegros
"Un Dia" - Juana Molina
"Big Yuyo" - Los Pericos
We'll start the videos with a proud son of the city of Venado Tuerto in Santa Fe Province. You may prefer to skip ahead to the second video. Viewers of a sensitive nature may want to skip the last one as well.
Looking forward to my stiff body being unlocked!
ReplyDeleteThis is nice, and challenging. How are you going to cover all of the islands in the Carribean. By Country (and by country I mean a member of the UN in its own right) by Island, How about Martinique/Sint Maarten.
ReplyDeleteTiny semi-independant islands like Curaçao against giants like Brasil. Do they get equal attention. It is your quest, your blog, and i love to see it coming
I have chickened out of doing the Caribbean/ North Atlantic islands as part of this series as explained here:
Deletehttps://27leggies.blogspot.com/2025/05/travel-update.html
Bloody hell, 2nd paragraph and you just have to mention the match that so disillusioned the 15 year-old me that I totally lost interest in the national team (although that 5-1 thrashing in 1975 was the catalyst )
ReplyDeleteSome excellent tracks here, especially La Barra da chocolate and La Yegros. I'm sure Mr de Burgh has better songs than your choice, maybe his looky-likey Mr Charity Chic could suggest one?
ReplyDeleteHe definitely has better songs. But where would be the fun in that?
Delete