The Basement Rug

This is a story of 1960s spaghetti-western meets rock and roll meets disco meets hip-hop.

I first heard the Babe Ruth recording of The Mexican from their 1972 debut album First Base. It was part of a mixed tape that my brother-in-law had put together, and the song was an immediate standout. The lyrics, the grand arrangements, and the incredible guitar playing were just so compelling.

By the time I was introduced to Babe Ruth I thought I had heard all of the best guitarists of the 20th century - at least in blues, jazz and rock and roll, but I had never heard playing so precise - yet soulful - as the playing by Alan Shacklock on The Mexican (Shacklock’s version of Frank Zappa’s King Kong is also great).

Shacklock’s nearly flawless playing made him my new “favourite guitarist” for quite some time, and that tape is still in regular rotation in my car. I am still surprised to meet guitarists who have never heard of Shacklock and am always eager to drop his name whenever I can.

While I thought that Shacklock, Babe Ruth and The Mexican were hidden gems in the most obscure parts of rock and roll history, it turns out I was quite mistaken. While Babe Ruth may be mostly forgotten, The Mexican continues to have almost a life of its own.

The Mexican is actually an interpolation of the theme song from the 1965 film, A Few Dollars More, which was originally created by Ennio Morricone, the award-winning Italian composer who arranged scores for more than 500 film and television productions. Morricone wrote the characteristic soundtracks of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti-westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968).

Although these themes are recognized the world over, it wasn’t until recently that I connected the dots between A Few Dollars More and The Mexican, when I was listening to the soundtrack recording by Hugo Montenegro and his orchestra, and started to hear Alan Shacklock’s guitar riffs in my head.

About a year ago a friend of mine was playing an “old school” mix at a party and The Mexican came on. I recognized it immediately as a version of the Babe Ruth song, and began telling him about the incredible guitar work of Alan Shacklock, but my friend had never heard of Babe Ruth or Shacklock.

My friend has a wide ecclectic taste like mine and he told me that the mix we were listening to was an educational project compiled by a friend who was trying to bring him up to speed on the roots of hip-hop.

As it turns out, the Babe Ruth original of the song was first honoured “back in the day” by DJs Kool Herc and Grand Master Flash in the Bronx street partys in NYC. The Mexican and it’s rebirth from the old school to the present day Hip-Hop culture has become “the Anthem” to DJ’s, Remixers, B-Boys and breaking crews throughout the planet. Imitated by such legends as Afrika Bambata on the Platinum seller “Planet Rock”, Todd Terry’s “Orange Lemon” entitled “Dreams of Santa Anna” (a lyrical quote), The Mexican has popped up in recordings by Sugar Ray, R. Kelly, The Chemical Bros, Doug E Fresh, Funky 4+1, Jungle Brothers, Maestro Fresh Wes, and many more.

I am not sure what version my friend was playing on his mix, but I have a feeling it was this version by The Bombers:

The musicians on The Bombers recording included Walter Rossi on guitar, Marty Simon on drums, Buster “Cherry” Jones on bass, and a host of keyboardists: George Lagios, Dwayne Ford, Gino Soccio, Denis Lepage, Pierre Gauthier. Percussion was performed by Billy Workman, B.C. Jones, Tony Grant, and Joey Armando. Background vocals were performed by Sharon Ryan, and Yves Lapiere.

Downloads:

• For a Few Dollar’s More - Hugo Montenegro (1965)
• The Mexican - Babe Ruth (1972)
• The Mexican - The Bombers (1978)
• Main Man - The Bombers (1978)

Lyrics extracted from BabeRuthBand.com:

Chico Fernandez sleepin’ on his gun
dreams of Santa Anna fightin’ in the Sun
Drums so loud from all sides
makes it hard to dream
a’blue is fallin’ hard and fast
makes it all seem real

mornin’ come mornin’
Chico gotta have his share
mornin’ sad morning’
said he must be there
mornin’ come mornin’
well I laughed and I cried
and I cry cry cry cry cried

mornin’ sad mornin’
Mexican

Signorita’s pinin’
Chico come on home
Santa Ana’s losin’
n’ you’ll be first to go
Sam Houstan’s laughin’
and Davey Crockett too
When Ana takes the Alamo
The first to go is you

Mornin’ come Mornin’
a chico gotta have his share
Mornin’ sad mornin’
Heaven will be there.

mornin’ sad mornin’
well I laughed and I laughed

© Carlin Music Corporation

Safari Trumpet has got to be one of the best party songs of all time. Dies ist ungefähr ebenso käsiger als leichter Zuhören erhält, aber he ist es deshalb viel Spaß! Haben Sie einen Safe und Spaß Silvester! Have a safe and fun New Year’s Eve everyone!

I spent the end of the 1980s working for restaurants and night clubs, during which time I gained a real distaste for “club” or “dance” records, partially because the music did not interest me (repetitive loops of electronically generated sounds still don’t appeal to me vary much), but mostly because I had to listen to the same records over and over several nights per week.

I was a rocker through and through. Anything else I listened to was of common roots: blues, funk, soul, jazz, country, and folk. There was no disco in my library. Whether simple or complex, I craved music with mojo, something with feeling, and electronic or computer generated music was the exact opposite. As far as I was concerned, it represented the death of human culture - it was death, and I hated it.

At the time, electronic music was the new underground, and house was the moniker of the day, riding in on the wave of disco from the late 1970s. Despite my disdain for synth-beats, sequencers, and drum machines, I do recall liking Kraftwerk, perhaps due to its use of analog synths like the Moog, and its use of melody, harmony, and more classically styled arrangements.

Now electronic music has branched off into dozens of sub-genres but what I hear still sounds like disco to me. Techno, electro, dance, trance, you can add all the subtleties you want to an electronically configured can of sound, you can even increase the beats per minute to an utterly inhuman pace, but if it’s riding over a continuous 4/4 beat, it’s still disco to me.

Twenty years has past and a lot has changed in music and myself. The genre-busting continues, and I’ve mellowed out somewhat to the world of electronic music - after all, rock and roll was based entirely on electronic amplification.

As I’ve returned to collecting vinyl records over the last few years I have come across large collections of 12″ dance club records that have been dumped into second-hand stores by DJ’s carrying what now amounts to dated music. By and large I have avoided these records because I have little interest and even less knowledge. In almost every other genre of recorded music I have pretty good instincts. I can pick up a record and with a cursory examination I am confident as to whether or not I wish to add it to my library. When it comes to dance club records, I haven’t got a clue.

But I am taking some chances. I have picked up some excellent underground hip-hop this way - some really clever and dark political recordings that the kids refer to as “old school” or from “back in the day”.

I also have a thing for foreign records, and so in my limited posts of dance club records, this is what you are most likely to hear: Spanish techno, French dancehall, and re-mixes of 1960s Euro-psychadelia.

Señor Matanza by Mano Negra incorporates the best of organic music (a recognizable traditional rhythm) with the hypnotic elements of electronic dance music (dub effects and samples of Spanish broadcast clips).

AMG Biography by Jason Ankeny: [edited]

Named in honor of an Andalucian anarchist group, Mano Negra (The Black Hand) emerged from the same Parisian artists’ scene, drawing equal influence from the punk ethos of the Clash and the multitude of sounds and rhythms endemic to the global music community. Formed in 1986 from the remnants of the neo-rockabilly unit the Hot Pants, Mano Negra essentially consisted of vocalist Manu Chao, his trumpeter brother Tonio and drummer cousin Santiago Casiriego, Spanish natives who fused rock, rap, flamenco and rai to create a heady brew they dubbed “Patchanka,” a name derived from a Spanish pejorative for dancehall music.

In 1992 they embarked on the “Cargo Tour,” travelling to a series of port cities to perform on a stage built into their ship’s hold. Returning the following year, they journeyed by rail from Colombia’s Caribbean coast to the capital city of Bogotá, giving free concerts at stations en route. Latin influences dominated 1994’s Casa Babylon, which proved to be the group’s final record.