The Latin Americanist: More tunes for the weekend

Now that the weekend is here why don’t we listen to some really great music?

Brooklyn Vegan lists this year’s tour dates for Mexican-American alt-country artist Alejandro Escovedo (image). According to Wikipedia, Escovedo was unhappy to be on President George W Bush’s iPod playlist.(It could’ve been worse, Alejandro; you’re not Vice president Cheney’s playlist!)

La Onda Tropical clues us in to Cuban salsero Alberto Alberto whose album was deemed as “too perfect” by Chapin. (Better too much rather than too little, no?)

When you’re wrong, you’re wrong, and several readers rightly took me to task for not posting this week on the Academy Awards. No excuses folks; I definitely dropped the ball on that one.Hopefully I can make up for that mistake by including a pair of songs from two notable movies from 2006- The Science of Sleep starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Pan’s Labyrinth, which won several Oscars last Sunday.

Let’s revisit a musician we talked about recently- José González. Congratulations to González for recently receiving an award from the EU for his critically acclaimed debut album, and we look forward to his next album scheduled for release later this year.

One of Audioversity’s latest posts discussed recently released music by a few artists including Brazilian legend Caetano Veloso. Veloso’s latest album- Ce- “finds the shape-changing musician in a stripped down setting featuring just guitar, bass, drums and the occasional keyboard”. Veloso’s simplicity works and Ce is worth listening to from start to finish.

Lastly, is a group that is a personal favorite mine- the Pixies. They are a very influential, albeit underrated, alternative rock quartet whose heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s enjoyed more success overseas than in their native U.S.Before forming the band, leafed singer Frank Black spent some time on a student exchange trip in Puerto Rico where he learned some Spanish.Black sang several Pixies songs in Spanish including the song included below which is a cover of The Yardbirds’ Evil Hearted You.

Image- PBS

Links- Brooklyn Vegan, La Onda Tropical, Thoughts Etcetera, The Smudge of Ashen Fluff, puddlegum, Audioversity, The Latin Americanist, Wikipedia

The Latin Americanist