In 1984, Gloria Estefan started off as the lead singer of Miami Sound Machine. By 1987, after scoring four big hits from their first major U.S. album, they became Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, and by 1989, after even bigger success, it was simply Gloria Estefan. This greatest-hits collection covers the years 1985 to 1992, featuring most ...
Four decades and dozens of albums into his career, Vicente Fernández remains one of Mexico's finest ranchera artists, arguably the best ever. It's as if he gets better with age, for Para Siempre is a near-perfect album. The singing, the songwriting, the instrumentation -- it's all stellar. The songwriting is particularly notable. All of the songs ...
A lively, spontaneous record that manages to sound both relaxed and forceful at the same time, A Toda Cuba Le Gusta shows off the talents of many of Cuba's elder statesmen of Afro-Cuban jazz. Over gently pulsating conga grooves and low-register ostinatos, such luminaries as pianist Ruben Gonzalez and singer Manuel "Puntillita" Licea float dramatic ...
While it doesn't quite match the dizzying heights of his breakthrough Todo a Su Tiempo, Marc Anthony's third album Contra la Corriente is nevertheless a barnstormer of a record. Anthony is no typical salsa singer -- he's a powerful, bold singer who doesn't follow the genre's traditions. He ignores improvisation and concentrates on love songs, but ...
Like the food that is so lovingly prepared in the film Tortilla Soup, the music on the soundtrack is a feast for the senses. The soundtrack creates a palpable connection between the taste of Latin food and music, so much so that the album contains recipes cards. The soundtrack is a gumbo of Latin styles, from a traditional Cuban tune by Eliades ...
Marc Anthony plays the role of Héctor Lavoe in El Cantante, the film he had been wanting and waiting to make for many years. Lavoe is a hero to salsa fans, famed for the artistry of his vocals and the intensity of his rhythm; his records with Willie Colón during the early '70s were high points for salsa, and they paved the way for many vocalists ...
Lágrimas Negras (Black Tears) is a collaborative effort between the octogenarian Cuban piano master Bebo Valdés and the reigning Spanish flamenco cantador, Dieguito El Cigala. Recorded for Fernando Trueba and Nat Chediak's Calle 54 label, the sessions took place in Madrid between September and December 2002. Maestro Valdés (born in 1918), the ...
Desde Un Principio is a superb collection of Marc Anthony's biggest salsa hits, which preceded the English language success he attained with his 1999 self-titled album. The only complaint is that several of the songs are severely truncated, especially toward the end, but, nonetheless, this proves to be an ideal introduction to the singer, ...
Turning the covers album concept on its head, Rhythms del Mundo: Cuba doesn't set a varied group of northern artists loose on the music made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club, but instead sets the Club's members lose on the northerners' own songs. Now that's an inspired idea, and all to aid charities assisting the victims of natural disasters ...
El Rock de Mi Pueblo has the infectious, irresistible, organic, natural quality of a backyard jam session. The palette used is full of vibrant earth tones, tonal colors as honest and real as Carlos Vives' living, breathing lyricism. The joy and excitement is intoxicating and unavoidable. Vives' sensitive yet contemporary treatment of the vallenato ...
With a fiercely loyal fan base and over ten years of success in the salsa world, Grupo Niche decided that with its six studio albums, and as many compilations, 1994 was ready for The Best. According to the charts, they were right. The Best charted well for them, and continues to be among their best-selling records, as they specialize in both ...
In the wake of Aventura's mainstream breakthrough album, God's Project (2005), the group was so emboldened by its commercial success that it crowned itself the Kings of Bachata and, with some modesty, used the title as an acronym for the concert tour document K.O.B. Live. The double-disc live album (actually a triple-disc package featuring two CDs ...
Several full-size steel-drum orchestras perform a selection of ten Caribbean-island tunes on Steel Drum Party, with contributors including the London All Stars Steel Orchestra, the Lambeth Community Youth Steel Orchestra, and the Red Stripe Ebony Steel Band. The feel is breezy and tropical, and even if there are better steel-drum compilations out ...
Ever since Gloria Estefan split from Miami Sound Machine in 1989 to go solo, her best efforts tended to be her Spanish-language ones, and her fourth such album, 90 Millas, is no exception. In fact, it might be her best overall effort -- regardless of language -- since Mi Tierra (1993), which was her first to be sung entirely in Spanish and an ...
Given the proliferation of young and beautiful urban dance-pop divas dominating the radio and music video airwaves in 2005, it initially was tempting to discount Rihanna as yet another Beyoncé-Ciara-Ashanti cash-in. But like her Def Jam labelmate Teairra Mari -- another young and beautiful urban dance-pop diva who emerged out of nowhere in 2005 -- ...
From the start, it was obvious that the Mavericks were comprised of a more interesting variety of flavors than most C&W hitmakers, and by the time they released Trampoline in 1998, the band had evolved from an eclectic country-accented outfit into an adventurous adult pop group willing to dip their toes into practically anything. So it shouldn't ...
A beautifully executed and produced album by Omara Portuando, the only woman to appear on the original Buena Vista Social Club recordings. Portuando, who is one of Cuba's most acclaimed musicians and a featured performer at the Tropicana, has shown here that, at 70, she still possesses the qualities that helped develop her stardom on her native ...
The career of the "actor/singer" is a precipitous one indeed. Seldom has this combination yielded truly quality results for the artist in either arena. There have been a few examples of artists, like Rubén Blades and Marc Anthony, who've managed to straddle the fence successfully. With more than 15 records spanning nearly two decades on one side ...
A release of Cuban music following closely on the heels of the break in the blockade for cultural exchange, this album features one of the founders of the nueva trova movement of Cuban music, somewhere between poetry and song in general. The music itself might flow from pop to nothingness, to light backing arrangements only. The vocals are ...
Featuring the smash hit "A Puro Dolor," which helped to put Son by Four on the map, their 2000 self-titled release is a pan-Latin dance party not to be missed. Silky Latin pop vocalization, with more than a little R&B, against the backdrop of sophisticated modern salsa arrangements places this vocal quartet among the hipper artists practicing ...
Amor y Suerte: Exitos Romanticos rounds up a baker's dozen of Gloria Estefan's most romantic Spanish-language songs, including numerous really great ones. For the most part, this is a collection of previously released songs, and most of them are glossy adult contemporary ballads (perhaps too glossy, at times, for those who favor her dance music); ...
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![Desde un Principio: From the Beginning [Sony International]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/h32060a2u80_t.jpg)
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