Perez Prado

Listen/Download – Perez Prado – Mama A Go Go MP3

Greetings all.

You find music in the strangest places.

A few years back someone posted a psychotronic video, with a clip of a dancer from some old black and white grindhouse flick, but the music playing over the clip was wild.

It took some finagling, but after asking around and doing a little digging I discovered that the track was toady’s selection, ‘Mama A Go Go’ by Perez Prado.

Prado was a Cuban/Mexican bandleader, known as the King of the Mambo who had hits in the 50s with the original ‘Mambo No 5′, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’ and ‘Patricia’.

Originally released in 1967 on the United Artists LP ‘Concierto Para Bongo’, ‘Mama A Go Go’ is a crazy fusion of Latin boogaloo and 60s au go go.
The mixture of styles is unusual, but I’m a little shocked it wasn’t more prevalent. The collision of the two styles seems like a natural fit to me, with the hard percussion and the wailing combo organ.

The album as a whole is a very interesting mix of styles, with a few tracks (‘Estoy’ and ‘A Go Go’) following the pattern of ‘Mama A Go Go’, ‘Cayitano’ moving in a straighter boogaloo direction and ‘Fantasia’ and the title track going straight up Latin jazz.

The album must have been popular in some markets, as it was released in a number of countries in 1967, then reissued in Spain and the US in the 70s (this is a 1979 Raiz issue) then again in a few countries in the 80s, then on CD a number of times in the following decades.

There was also a 45 issue of this track and as far as I can tell it’s rarer and more expensive than the LP.

I hope you dig it and I’ll see you next week.

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Keep the faith

Larry

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