Babe Ruth

Listen/Download – Babe Ruth – The Mexican MP3

Greetings all.

The end of the week is upon us, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show, which pops into the airwaves of the interwebs each and every Friday. You can subscribe to the show as a podcast in iTunes, listen on Stitcher, TuneIn and Mixcloud, check out the show on Cruising Radio in the UK, or grab yourself an MP3 right here at Funky16Corners.com

The tune I bring you today comes from a veer unusual source indeed, but is one of the DNA-level building blocks of dance culture and hip hop.

Babe Ruth were an English progressive rock band that released a handful of albums in the early to mid 70s for Harvest and Capitol.

They never had much a hit (on their own) and by mid-decade their odd mixture of sounds was going out of style.

That said, not long after they released the debut LP ‘First Base’ in 1972, David Mancuso, the man behind The Loft picked up on one of the album’s tracks, the uncharacteristically (for the band) funky ‘The Mexican’.

The story of the battle of the Alamo told from the viewpoint of a Mexican soldier, and – in an interesting bit of stylistic foreshadowing – interpolating a snippet of an Ennio Morricone theme, ‘The Mexican’ became a favorite of Mancuso’s and the dancers at his parties.

Flash forward a few years, and DJ Kool Herc is up in the Bronx, rocking the party, when Grandmaster Flash fell by, and as he recounted in his autobiography:

“I heard DJ Kool Herc before I ever saw him. I was two full blocks from the park jam and it was only an hour into the night, but already it was loud. Really fucking loud. I could name the tune he was playing: it was “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth. And…It…Was…Thundering…”

‘The Mexican’, from its beginnings as an English prog-rock album track, became part of the foundation of hip hop, part of Kool Herc’s ‘Merry Go Round’ breaks. It was a staple of hip hop DJs, and grew in popularity on disco playlists (it was remade by The Bombers in 1978).

In addition to being an extremely funky number (props to bassist Dave Hewitt and drummer Dick Powell) ‘The Mexican’ is a fantastic window into the Mancuso ethos, in that it is a very catchy, very danceable record brought onto his dance floor from a totally incongruous source.

Mancuso’s knack for finding records in odd genres that mixed perfectly in his sets was stellar, and the history of ‘The Mexican’ going forward from The Loft bore out his decision.

‘The Mexican’ has been sampled a bunch of times (though not as much as you’d expect for such an influential side) and was even remade in 1984 by Jellybean, with original vocalist Jennie Haan.

It is a groovy one (though there’s nothing else remotely like it on ‘First Base’), with a very cool story.

I hope you dig it, and I’ll see you all on Monday.

Keep the faith

Larry

 

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Also, the brand new Funky16Corners ‘Keep Calm and Stay Funky’ stickers have arrived! The stickers are 4″ x 3″ and printed on high quality, glossy stock. They are $2.00 each, with free shipping in the US ($2.00 per order shipping outside of the US). Click here to go to the ordering page.

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.

3 Responses to “Babe Ruth – The Mexican”

1. Aki says:

   January 7, 2017 at 4:20 pm

   I guess you have come across the cover version of this by the The Bombers… a bit more of a groover!
   

2. Larry says:

   January 7, 2017 at 4:22 pm

   I mention the Bombers version in the post.

3. Aki says:

   January 7, 2017 at 4:28 pm

   Yep, my bad – I missed that. My preferred version though 😉