{"id":6830,"date":"2017-01-05T12:35:13","date_gmt":"2017-01-05T17:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6830"},"modified":"2017-01-05T12:35:13","modified_gmt":"2017-01-05T17:35:13","slug":"babe-ruth-the-mexican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/?p=6830","title":{"rendered":"Babe Ruth – The Mexican"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Example\"
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Babe Ruth<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"
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Listen\/Download – Babe Ruth – The Mexican MP3<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Greetings all.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The end of the week is upon us, and so then is the Funky16Corners Radio Show<\/strong>, 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<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Babe Ruth<\/strong> were an English progressive rock band that released a handful of albums in the early to mid 70s for Harvest and Capitol.<\/p>\n

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

That said, not long after they released the debut LP \u2018First Base\u2019 in 1972, David Mancuso<\/strong>, the man behind The Loft picked up on one of the album\u2019s tracks, the uncharacteristically (for the band) funky \u2018The Mexican\u2019.<\/p>\n

The story of the battle of the Alamo told from the viewpoint of a Mexican soldier, and \u2013 in an interesting bit of stylistic foreshadowing – interpolating a snippet of an Ennio Morricone<\/strong> theme, \u2018The Mexican\u2019 became a favorite of Mancuso\u2019s and the dancers at his parties.<\/p>\n

Flash forward a few years, and DJ Kool Herc<\/strong> is up in the Bronx, rocking the party, when Grandmaster Flash<\/strong> fell by, and as he recounted in his autobiography:<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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 \u201cThe Mexican\u201d by Babe Ruth. And\u2026It\u2026Was\u2026Thundering\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018The Mexican\u2019, from its beginnings as an English prog-rock album track, became part of the foundation of hip hop, part of Kool Herc\u2019s<\/strong> \u2018Merry Go Round\u2019 breaks.<\/a> It was a staple of hip hop DJs, and grew in popularity on disco playlists (it was remade by The Bombers<\/strong> in 1978).<\/p>\n

In addition to being an extremely funky number (props to bassist Dave Hewitt<\/strong> and drummer Dick Powell<\/strong>) \u2018The Mexican\u2019 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.<\/p>\n

Mancuso\u2019s knack for finding records in odd genres that mixed perfectly in his sets was stellar, and the history of \u2018The Mexican\u2019 going forward from The Loft bore out his decision.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Mexican\u2019 has been sampled a bunch of times (though not as much as you\u2019d expect for such an influential side) and was even remade in 1984 by Jellybean<\/strong>, with original vocalist Jennie Haan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It is a groovy one (though there\u2019s nothing else remotely like it on \u2018First Base\u2019), with a very cool story.<\/p>\n

I hope you dig it, and I\u2019ll see you all on Monday.<\/p>\n

Keep the faith<\/strong><\/p>\n

Larry<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Example\"<\/strong><\/strong><\/strong> \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

____________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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

PS Head over to Iron Leg too.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[124,11,83,14,30,223,69],"tags":[163,166,224],"class_list":["post-6830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drums","category-funk","category-funk-rock","category-funky16corners","category-lp-tracks","category-original-breaks-and-beats","category-original-versions","tag-funk","tag-funky16corners","tag-samples"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pMKgo-1Ma","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6830"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6891,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6830\/revisions\/6891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/funky16corners.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}