Music Spectrum

On the 1971 live version of “Nobody’s Business But My Own” found on In Progress & In Motion 1965-1998, Taj Mahal breaks into a little jive that ends with him saying, “And a big stereo listening to Wolfman Jack say, ‘Ain’t this XERB, baby.’” It’s a great impression, capturing the emotion, excitement, and thrill of listening to one of the X superstations.

With call letters all beginning with X—the designated first letter for Mexico broadcasters, these pirate superstations went beyond U.S. borders in order to exceed wattage restrictions. Today there are a limited number of 50,000 watt, clear channel AM stations that are able to cover multiple regions of the United States at night with their signal. Certain broadcasters wanted to reach more territory than the 50,000 watt limit allowed, so they went south to Mexico where there weren’t the same restrictions. 500,000 to 1 million watts pumped out from the X stations, and so did the adventurous, dangerous, rebellious, wide-ranging music, DJ personalities, and hucksters.

Los Super Seven’s Heard It On the X tunes in the ghosts of those south-of-the-border radio stations. It’s an album that pulls together border sounds, Mexican sounds, rockabilly, soul, swing, and country. Los Super Seven is a Tex-Mex collaborative, releasing this their third album. The visionary producer Dan Goodman brings together Los Super Seven veterans Joe Ely, Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez, Raul Malo, Ruben Ramos, and Rick Trevino to once again be the most accomplished roadhouse band. As guests come and go, Los Super Seven shape, shift, and free the rhythms to let the guest or lead race across the airwaves with something truly potent.

Goodman’s vision is further developed by production help from Rick Clark (producer of the eclectic Oxford American magazine music CD series) and Charlie Sexton (no stranger to roadhouse guitars and praise on this site). Aside from production duties, Sexton adds plenty of punch with his instrumental offerings.

Like Santana, the spirit of the album is collaboration. John Hiatt steps up, calls out for Doug Sahm’s “I’m Not That Kat (Anymore).” The supergroup responds with rockin’ bop to back Hiatt’s throaty vocal (not too far removed from Wolfman Jack). Lyle Lovett sends the group on a Texas swing for “My Window Faces the South,” made famous by Bob Willis. As Lovett does in his own songs, he’s often talking how he is drawn back south, back home. It seems here that the song also is saying “my radio faces the south,” how X radio drew listeners south.

While this is like a house band project, allowing guests to shine, Los Super Seven members themselves step forward to be featured on some of the strongest cuts here. Amid the mariachi horns and guitars, the lead vocals of Raul Malo marinade “The El Burro Song” with full irony on lines like “My love has fallen and can’t get up,” and “a heart like a radio, the sound turned down.” Ruben Ramos takes the lead vocal for ZZ Top’s “Heard It On the X,” a tune dedicated to X radio which goes through a much more ground level Mex mix here, unleashing the full power of the mysterious superstation transmissions.

The horns steal the show on the neo-swing of “The Song of Everything,” another Sahm tune. Malo’s vocal is deep and smoky, but the horns punch this tune, bouncing it against the stratosphere.

Joe Ely leads the way on Bobby Fuller’s “Let Her Dance.” A pop single revisited, it’s from the sock hop era of innocence and sexual tension found in dancing. At least, I hope that’s what this song was about, because as the speaker talks about getting to dance with her after she was just dancing with another guy the night before. . .well, it’d be kind of strange if dancing was euphemism. Joe Ely and the boys certainly let the song swing, the toms filling the high school gymnasium as if all of the drama was simply made for the dance floor and perhaps a front porch kiss.

Joe Ely is celebrated in Patricia Vonne’s song, “Joe’s Gone Riding” (see Vonne review). Patricia Vonne’s album is soaked with mariachi, and drawing from that same tradition, Los Super Seven’s rendition of “Cupido” spins for a cobblestone Mexican dance. Should Robert Rodriguez be planning another mariachi film, the on-screen band should be a Vonne-fronted Los Super Seven.

In the 80’s, Wall of Voodoo sang “I bought a Mexican radio,” which quirkily dealt with the mystery of tuning in sounds from beyond the border. However, that song (and regularly played video on MTV) cannot compare to Los Super Seven’s Heard It On the X. The album is like a historical document, like something to be played on an old time radio show. It was released in March 2005, but you almost feel as if you should be dusting it off, feel the warmth of the transistor, and hear the crackle of distant lightning in the static pop.

Thanks to Los Super Seven and Telarc for the review copy.

Country Southwestern. Patricia Vonne can sing those Country rock blues like Maria McKee but also play alongside Los Lobos in border crossing rock. It’s no surprise that her song, “Traeme Paz,” was featured in Robert Rodriguez’s Once Upon a Time in Mexico–the third in his “El Mariachi” trilogy which featured guns, guitars, bullets, mariachis, and guns in guitar cases. Vonne’s impassioned, sultry, hot-dusty, Mexico blues fits right in with Rodriguez’s films which are like vehicles for rock music.

Of course, like the Spaniard Antonio Banderas, the star of the second and third installments of Rodriguez’s trilogy, Vonne’s music reaches beyond the Rio Grande and back across to the Old World. For instance, a strong cut from Guitars & Castanets is “La Gitana de Triana,” flamenco-fueled rock about Vonne’s sister joining the gypsy dances of Triana. “Fiesta Sangria” is dedicated to Vonne’s Seville and the evenings of community at her local cantina.

A song like “Texas Burning” obviously recalls the geography of the border/Mexico blues, but this sound is much more Country Western than Country Southwestern. Here’s where those comparisons can be made to McKee, Patty Larkin, Patti Griffith, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, or Emmylou Harris. With its Dylanesque title, “Blood on the Tracks” has the Southern Railroad rhythm rounded out by Robert LaRoche’s harmony vocals (LaRoche who plays guitars throughout, cowrote a majority of the songs with Vonne, and happens to be Vonne’s husband).

Cowboys wear leather and ride horses. Modern cowboys wear leather and ride Harleys. Vonne could take the stage in any biker bar with “Rebel Bride” and “Lonesome Rider.” With a Joan Jett attitude on “Bride” and the far-horizon view on “Rider,” the songs are made to accompany the swirl of dust surrounding the bikers pulling into the lot of a way-out Texas roadhouse. “Bride” gets some of its rebel air from the ever-present, ever-electrifying guitar of Charlie Sexton.

Inspired by Johnny Reno and the Sax Maniacs, the first live show Vonne saw in her hometown of San Antonio, “Sax Maniac” features the dirty saxophone of Reno, a longtime member of Chris Isaak’s band. (How many artists get the chance to work with the inspiration for their song?) The song brings swing to the Country Southwestern.

As the album closes out with “Traeme Paz” from Once Upon a Time in Mexico, speaking of the trilogy’s theme of el corozon, Vonne is an enchanting mariachi, singing with a passion which burns a fire beneath the listener.

Thanks to Patricia Vonne and CoraZong Records USA for the review copy.

Desperado was the first in a double feature at the drive-in theater. We hadn’t gone that night to see Desperado, so we weren’t concerned about pulling in a little late, tuning in the movie sound on the car radio a full 10 minutes into the film. But then I was hooked on Robert Rodriguez’s second part of the Mariachi triology—quirky, gritty, bloody action films with comedic, political, and satirical themes. I was hooked, and it had everything to do with the music.

In the DVD Special Edition era, where you can hear the director’s commentary, learning so much about the vision and craft behind a film, now Rodriguez and Milan Records give us that same kind of education about the Mariachi soundtracks.

Mexico and Mariachis pulls selections from all three films (El Mariachi, Desperado, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico) plus other songs that inspired Rodriguez’s writing. The tracks include songs that inspired Rodriguez’s vision even if not in the films (i.e.: Tito Larriva’s “Just Like Roses” and Cruzados’ “Flor de Mal”), and alternate recordings done post-film in the way Rodriguez would’ve wanted to record if he had had the budget or time (i.e.: “Alcarn y Pistolero” by Tito Larriva; “Malaguena Salerosa” and “Once Upon a Time in Mexico (Main Titles)” both recorded by Rodriguez’s band, Chignon). In fact, the CD’s subtitle is “Music From and Inspired by Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi Trilogy.” However, it would be more appropriate to say, “Music that Inspired” the trilogy.

What makes this CD such an education are the liner notes. Written by Rodriguez, they help me realize why it is the soundtrack that captured my attention watching Desperado at that drive-in. Rodriguez’s story is built around the music. The music doesn’t serve the film, as much as the film serves the music. The film unlocks the visual already contained in the mariachi-tinged score; the violence, romance, desperation, humor, poverty, history, crime, drugs, sex, corruption, and heroics in the guitar.

This collection doesn’t quite blaze with the intensity of the Desperado soundtrack itself, but Mexico and Mariachis is intense for the way you see how the music really opens up Rodriguez’s story. At one point, Rodriguez says in the liner notes that he was attempting to create a sound for the trilogy that was “south of the border rock meets epic movie score.” Listen to the Desperado soundtrack, and Rodriguez has achieved this. Mexico and Mariachis is the south of the border rock and folk roots, the sound that would be epic-fied.

The CD comes with a bonus DVD of performances and interviews that was not available for review.

Thanks to Milan Records for the review CD.