Monday, June 18, 2007
Willie Colon - La Murga
This may very well be one of the most famous horn lines to ever come out of Puerto Rico. I'm not sure who the other cantante is. I want to say Pete Rodriguez, but this guy's voice is too high and he doesn't have the whole Barry White facial structure going on. Yomo Toro from Chile tears it up on cuatro. Believe it or not, this is technically Christmas music.
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5 comments:
This is THE song that for me begins the Christmas season at my house...although I will play it anytime dur8ing the year. The meaning of "murga" is related to "cumbancha", and thus very much in line with the "Cumbanchero" theme in one of your posts. "Murga" , according to the "Diccionario de la lengua española", refers to a group of pretty bad "wanna be musicians" that at Christmas time go to the houses of well to do folks in the hopes of receiving some gift. According to my Panamanian friends, a "murga" is a "parranda", a party.
The "other" singer is Tito Allen, whom you can hear in Ray Barreto's old school salsa album "Indestructible".
And with regards to Yomo Toro, Mr. Toro is a "jìbaro" from Puerto Rico. Check out his bio at http://www.cuatro-pr.org/Home/Eng/Instrmus/Players/Oldguard/Yomo/yomoin.htm .
Let "the sun of latin music" shine in!
Puerto Ricans can't celebrate Christmas without this song. No one can resist either dancing to this song or grabbing a musical instrument to "try" to play it. It brings wonderful memories of the family parties at the house of Don Iván y Doña Matilde.
Thank you for posting this.
Nice rendition, but NO ONE makes this song swing like Hector Lavoe does in the original recording with Willie Colon's band in 1970.
There's a reason Hector was called El Cantante de los Cantantes.
Viva Hector!
Great, awesome site, by the way. Keep the great music coming, and I love the additional source material as an adjunct to your show. Fantastic idea, and thanks for putting in the work.
Oooooo! This was wonderful! I just found a version of La Murga on an MP3 download thru Pandora. It features Willie Colon and Yomo Toro, but I'm not sure if it's Hector or some other fantastic cantante. The CD appears to be out of print, but it reads on my Zune as "The Best of Willie Colon." The album cover also has "Salsa Legends" and "Masters of Salsa."
This is a wonderful website. And I really appreciate your translations.
Muchas gracias!
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