Mexican Tuesdays

[johncorrigan]

For another Tuesday not a Mexican song, but a song about Mexican Rubén Jaramillo Méndez - 'Bullets of Mexico' by Phil Ochs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyMUX3lrVbQ

Jaramillo was a political figure who fought for land reform but was violently murdered along with his family when their home was attacked, reportedly by federal judicial police.

[Globaltruth]

In a lighter vein, it is simply astonishing that we didn't start with this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Rqdgna3Yw

[Richard Tarleton]

Here's a zapateado by Sarasate, played by Mexico Cultural Ambassador Henryk Szeryng

[johncorrigan]

In a lighter vein, it is simply astonishing that we didn't start with this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-Rqdgna3Yw

Sorry GT, but given my upbringing I would have thrown this hat into the ring...uncouth, me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygGCWGJZV-c

'They'll put castanets on and ruin your Stetson...'
Loved that Szeryng, Richard.

[johncorrigan]

We've all been there...trying to escape the memory of a love in an emptying bottle of tequila. But not with the cameras rolling as they are for Vicente Fernandez, the 'King of Ranchera'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEkiXUYw3dA

Happy Mexican Tuesday everyone!

[Globaltruth]

Hey, that's a bit downbeat JC. How about this to keep the party going
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtRn2qmmOes

[johncorrigan]

Hey, that's a bit downbeat JC. How about this to keep the party going
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtRn2qmmOes

Must be a case of Bad Dude, Good Dude, GT.

[Richard Tarleton]

I didn't respond yesterday because I depressed myself by googling the place on the W coast where I stayed in 2001, on my Earthwatch wildlife project. The nearest small town was flattened by Hurricane Patricia on 2015 - I knew about that - but the tiny hamlet where the volunteers lived in a village house, Careyes (also flattened) is on a pristine, perfect little bay which I see is due to become a marina.... The cost of redevelopment, I suppose.

[johncorrigan]

I didn't respond yesterday because I depressed myself by googling the place on the W coast where I stayed in 2001, on my Earthwatch wildlife project. The nearest small town was flattened by Hurricane Patricia on 2015 - I knew about that - but the tiny hamlet where the volunteers lived in a village house, Careyes (also flattened) is on a pristine, perfect little bay which I see is due to become a marina.... The cost of redevelopment, I suppose.

Sorry to hear about that, Richard. Life by the ocean becoming more dangerous as levels rise.

[johncorrigan]

They're a bit of a one-trick-pony but Rodrigo y Gabriela's trick is pretty good now and again...especially for a Tuesday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENBX_v1Po1Y

[Richard Tarleton]

Here's a pretty little piece called Estrellita (Little Star) by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce (great buddy of Segovia's) played by Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski. I saw Morgan playing in a tiny coastal parish church in Pembrokeshire, part of the St David's Festival

[Lat-Literal]

We've all been there...trying to escape the memory of a love in an emptying bottle of tequila. But not with the cameras rolling as they are for Vicente Fernandez, the 'King of Ranchera'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEkiXUYw3dA

Happy Mexican Tuesday everyone!

Thank you JC.

I am listening to the clips in the last few posts and musin' unpredictably.

(The BBC made the wrong decision in reducing our world music programme from seven nights a week)

[Lat-Literal]

Here's a pretty little piece called Estrellita (Little Star) by Mexican composer Manuel Ponce (great buddy of Segovia's) played by Mexican guitarist Morgan Szymanski. I saw Morgan playing in a tiny coastal parish church in Pembrokeshire, part of the St David's Festival

For another Tuesday not a Mexican song, but a song about Mexican Rubén Jaramillo Méndez - 'Bullets of Mexico' by Phil Ochs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyMUX3lrVbQ

Jaramillo was a political figure who fought for land reform but was violently murdered along with his family when their home was attacked, reportedly by federal judicial police.

Hey, that's a bit downbeat JC. How about this to keep the party going
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vtRn2qmmOes

First, I am so pleased to read your contributions, Richard. A warm welcome again to this part of the forum. My recent tour of Eastern European classical music got bogged down in Croatia and Serbia. I will get there but must confess that I hadn't realised just how many countries there were east of Switzerland. Full marks to at least one of our forum members for thriving there and I hope in time I can do his adopted country justice. With a few exceptions, though, my preferences in classicism are for Britain, France, Spain and Latin America and more of the US than I could have imagined. A significant part of the appeal of classical music from Latin America and Spain is in its more obvious connections - and this is open to debate - with the folk traditions. Perhaps it is just that I prefer those sorts of folk traditions to several others. Anyhow, I do have the splendid "Estrellita" by Ponce on Naxos by Adam Holzman. I'm also keen on, among other composers, Nepomiceno, Nazareth, Oswald and Mignone and would enjoy discussing them with others who know them too.

Some will walk in retirement to Santiago de Compostela. I have merely taken a train there to watch a football match on television in a bar although I did incorporate some sight seeing. In contrast, St Davids would be a necessity if ever there was a sense of wishing to walk a spiritual pilgrimage in the British Isles. The reference brought back many happy memories of 72, 74, 75 and 78 with the beautiful walks to St Nons chapel and the rockpools close to St Justinian's lifeboat (not so much Porthstinian as what the Nationalists call Porthclais); the man in bow tie and the lady in evening dress who clearly believed that the restaurant in the city centre was on their level and then surprisingly revealed as much when they ordered in very posh accents "two rissoles please"; the cheap rate charged by virtue of a word-of-mouth for a room the size of a large house with a triple aspect on Whitesands Bay, its beach private and hence as unapproachable as most of Cannes happens to be as one was to later find out; the chat with Harold Macmillan above Caerfai on the return from Ramsey - I doubt he could walk then to Caerbwdi; and the land at Solva sold by Mrs Woo-Woo to the National Trust but we have communicated about that point before.

Re JC's selections, I have a very soft spot for Phil Ochs, not least because he reminds me of the woman I might have married but never did. It was an inauspicious start. I was supposed to be managing her. She was flicking elastic bands because she didn't get the gig as anticipated by both herself and her manager who couldn't spell until I taught him. But I ended up getting tapes by Phil Ochs from her and was told by her how to pronounce Phil Ochs and then advised by her that I was right about Gordon Lightfoot but wrong about Daniel O'Donnell, not that I was wrong. I also got a free ticket to Nanci Griffith at the RAH when she couldn't go and we did pizzas together below the fire station. Sure, I was an only Protestant child from slumland origins who supported the Gunners and she was from an extraordinarily large Catholic family, had an eternal season ticket at White Hart Lane and her late father had been a Canadian professor. However, people frequently noted we argued not in the way that ordinary people argue but in the way of a husband and wife.

My terrific Mum is 87 today. She is finding more laughs at the Old People's Club than she has done for the most part since the 1950s irrespective of my father and me and I know that Global is also keen on having a party on this thread. But it's Lhasa de Sela who had Mexican origins. Marmite for sure but Charlie liked her, so did I and she left far too soon.

Lhasa de Sela - De Cara a la Pared - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOLg_XY2cWA

Lhasa de Sela - La Marée Haute - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYUQJzDeOc

Lhasa de Sela - Por Eso Me Quedo - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2SB698sRSs

[Richard Tarleton]

Thanks Lat and many happy returns to your Mum!

I must PM you about some of those places - Croatia, Santiago de Compostela...we've talked about Pembrokeshire before....

I remember Tom Paxton talking about Phil Ochs last time I saw him live - he said you had to have your wits about you to hang out with Phil

[Lat-Literal]

Thanks Lat and many happy returns to your Mum!

I must PM you about some of those places - Croatia, Santiago de Compostela...we've talked about Pembrokeshire before....

I remember Tom Paxton talking about Phil Ochs last time I saw him live - he said you had to have your wits about you to hang out with Phil

Many thanks Richard.