American Sabor

September 28, 2011 6:10 AM

American Sabor: Latinos in US Popular Music is a currently traveling Smithsonian exhibition exploring the wide range of Latino artists and influences which have shaped American pop music genres since WWII, from Alice Bag to Flaco Jimenez to Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass to Joan Baez. The website is rich with maps, interviews, videos, and music samples.
posted by Miko (11 comments total)

The link for Herb Alpert goes to Desi Arnaz. Both certainly had a high profile in the 1960s American culture.
posted by three blind mice at 7:17 AM on September 28, 2011

Whoops! That's my mistake. Desi almost made my call-out list. Herb is in there too.
posted by Miko at 7:35 AM on September 28, 2011

Great post, Miko, thanks!
posted by the young rope-rider at 7:44 AM on September 28, 2011

Yay Alice Bag! Her memoir just came out. It's worth reading. Babylonian Gorgon is a great song. She's blogging now, and maintains an informative Women in LA Punk page. (And she could really sing, too (mp3): Cambridge Apostles, "Love Has Come To Town", unreleased demo from the 80s)

Odd that this site overlooks Alejandro Escovedo, who was in The Nuns, went on to be in the cowpunk Austin band Rank and File and the (much, much better, IMO) True Believers before a long career as a successful solo artist (who still usually ends his sets with a blazing cover of The Stooges' I Wanna Be Your Dog).
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:46 AM on September 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Divided into 5 sections, “American Sabor” explores the influence of Latino musicians in post-World War II America through the lens of major centers of Latino music production—New York, San Antonio, San Francisco, Miami and Los Angeles.

Well, that explains the exclusion of ? and the Mysterians.

Neat find, thanks!
posted by malocchio at 8:17 AM on September 28, 2011

Kind of a shame it's not coming to NYC. You'd think there'd be a natural audience here for this exhibition.
posted by cmgonzalez at 8:33 AM on September 28, 2011

BitterOldPunk, there's a blog and a "share your story" section - maybe you could add those other names there to contribute to the resource.

Kind of a shame it's not coming to NYC. You'd think there'd be a natural audience here for this exhibition.

Oh, totally! And it still might. I learned about it via the SITES newsletter, which is the way that exhibitions get marketed to many museums. If there's a museum you think would be a natural home for it, write them and send them a link - they may be completely willing to consider it, especially if they know there's active interest in their constituency.
posted by Miko at 8:59 AM on September 28, 2011

The comment on this post was amazing.
posted by bukvich at 11:54 AM on September 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Add to the missing list: Thee Midnighters, from East LA. Very active during the 60's. Inspired by The Beatles, Thee Midnighters founded Whittier Records to put out their own music.

I mean, come on, if you're going to put Cannibal & The Headhunters and Tierra in there... you gotta pay respect to Little Willie G!
posted by luckynerd at 12:58 PM on September 28, 2011

What about Question Mark and the Mysterians? Question Mark's earthling name is Rudy Martinez.
posted by jonp72 at 4:22 PM on September 29, 2011

Question Mark is in there; I ran across him in, I think, the Biography section. He's mentioned in here, I'm not finding the other section.
posted by Miko at 5:49 PM on September 29, 2011