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Boogaloo to Salsa Clips About this video: |
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Watch this video of Bobby Marin Veteran Record Producer and Latin Music Composer talking about his past, influences and personal mentors. Read this interview with Bobby, written by Carlos Quintana. Bobby Marin and the Resurrection of Latin Boogaloo
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Since the mid-sixties, Bobby Marin has been an active part of the Mambo/Salsa scene. Originally, along with Louie Ramirez, they were pioneers during the Latin Boogaloo era. They composed and arranged music for some of the big names in Latin music. Eventually Bobby sang some of his compositions as well. Along with his vocal group, The Latin Chords, he is featured in albums by Ali Baba, Louie Ramirez, Kako, Sonny Bravo, The Latin Blues Band, Willie Rosario, Tito Puente and others. He created his own record labels in the process including, Salsa Records, El Sonido, Mambo City, Latin Cool and other smaller labels. He worked as label manager for United Artists Latino, Orfeon, Ethnic Tapes (Tico Records), TR Records (Tito Rodriguez). He has produced independently for Fania Records, Musicor Records, CBS/Columbia, among others. Along with brother, producer Richard Marin, they recorded albums for Mercury Records, RCA, and Decca Records. He has co-produced with Tito Puente, Tito Rodriguez, Alegre All-Stars with Al Santiago and Joe Cuba. He produced Ismael Quintana, Jimmy Sabater, Orq. Revolucion ’70, Joe Bataan, Chucho Avellanet, Nelson Ned, Los Hispanos, Rosita Rodriguez, Charanga America, Willie Torres, Charlie Palmieri, Mike Guagenti, Chuito, Milton Zapata, Ralphie & The Latin Lovers, Dominica y su Conjunto, Azuquita, Hector Rivera, Ricardo Marrero and many, many other recording artists. Recently, he has formed and is running Mambo Music Records in Miami, and is a consultant for Fania/Codigo Records Join Bobby on
Below is an excerpt from Chapter one of my story which I'm preparing for Fania. If approved, it will be used by producers pitching the idea of recreating it for HBO in a story about life and music in the 50's and 60's. If interested in receiving Chapter one of story, contact mamboboogaloo@aol.com. An apartment in the Bronx, New York, summer of 1974 The party was in full swing. As I glanced around my living room everyone seemed to be having a great time. Record producer, Al Santiago, danced with his daughter, Melody. My brother, Richard, danced with his wife. Even Louie Ramirez, who rarely got down on the dance floor, was doing the Pachanga with the hot chick from apartment 3F. Johnny Pacheco’s “Guiro De Macorina” spun around the turn table providing the music everyone enjoyed. I mentioned to Charlie, the photographer, that it was a good time to take pictures of the dancers After all, one of these photographs would be used for the LP cover of my new album, “El Party”, by a sextet I had put together and named La Crema.. I had high expectations for this recording. After all, I had used top-notch musicians including Louie Ramirez, Chico Mendoza, Mike Collazo …. Even Tito Puente showed up for one of the sessions and played maracas. Of course, the key to creating a hit was getting airplay on the key Latin radio stations and that was not easy. In the past, I’d tried everything to get airplay. Cash, cocaine and women were offered to Program Directors and top disc jockeys in New York, Miami and Puerto Rico. The money for this would come from deals made with our distributors. I’d supply them with albums at a discounted price for cash which would be used to purchase the materials required to induce the stations to play my releases. However, certain other record labels had the top DJ’s in their hip pocket, dictating which records would and would not be played. I’ll get to that later. I stepped out onto the fire escape, watching the number 6 train as it rumbled over the el tracks on Westchester Avenue. I fired up a joint and started reminiscing about the paths I had taken that led me to this day. I looked in the window and saw Jimmy Rivera jammin’ on the floor. Seeing Jimmy took me back 20 years when we’d be listening to doo-wop music on his portable radio on his front stoop on Manhattan Avenue. One night, we decided to form our own singing group using members of our 107th street gang, The Royal Cobras. There was Jimmy, who sang baritone; Gigi, the first tenor; Cortez sang the lead; his brother, George, sang second tenor. I sang bass. We called ourselves, The Del-Chords. We practiced in hallways at night, using the natural echo created from the marble floors and high ceilings. Sooner or later, one of the residents would chase us away and force us to continue our harmonizing out under a street lamp, out in the cold. Otherwise we would use the music room at Booker T Washington Jr. High on Columbus Avenue. It provided us with a piano which our manager, Clyde, played to back us up as we created our vocal arrangements. Thanks to Clyde we usually had non-paying gigs on weekends. We sang at ballrooms and record hops throughout Harlem where other groups like The Heartbeats of The Channels performed for pay. Wednesdays were special. On Wednesday nights we attended the shows at the Apollo Theatre, on 125th,, where for 60 cents we would be entertained with a movie, cartoons, and a live show featuring big name artists like James Brown, Little Richard, Jackie Wilson and the great singing groups like The Harptones, The Heartbeats, Little Anthony and the Imperials. And, of course, our favorite group, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. All of this to be followed by the amateur talent contest, which came on around midnight, where fledgling singers and groups performed like they never performed before, onstage, backed up by the big orchestra led by Ruben Phillips. The unkind, at times, audience would eventually decide the winner by applause and hoots and hollers. Clyde, a private detective, rehearsed us diligently every night at Booker T. Washington Jr. High to finally prepare us for our first appearance on the amateur show at the world-renowned Apollo Theatre. It was 1958, I was sixteen and the group had aspirations of being discovered by recording executives attending the amateur show. When we finally made our first appearance we were scared to death. We knew what the consequences would be if we were not liked by the audience. We would be literally booed off stage, escorted by an ornately dressed individual known as ‘The Puerto Rican’, who while firing a gun, would actually yank any unpopular entertainers off the stage using a large hook, to the great pleasure of the malicious crowd. Our legs trembled as we walked onstage when introduced by the MC. We immediately heard some boos from some people out in the audience when they noticed that three of us were not black but white Puerto Ricans. The MC was kind and asked the audience to give us a break and stooped down to pick up a penny from the stage floor that was hurled at us. His reply to the audience was “Hmmm, a penny. There’s only one animal I know that throws a (s)cent.” With that, the audience laughed and applauded and the band played the intro to the song we had chosen to sing, Frankie Lymon’s “ABC’s of Love.” We had two separate mikes, one for Cortez, who sang lead (ala Frankie Lymon) and one for the back up singers who performed a dance routine while singing back-up. The crowd enjoyed our performance. After the show, around 2 a.m., the MC brought out all the performers and asked the audience to applaud for their favorites. Surprisingly, we came in third and were rewarded with five dollars which we split five ways. On the way home we jumped over the subway turnstiles, refusing to part with any of our prize money. I grew up on West 107th Street, in Manhattan, and played stickball on that street every warm day. The 1950’s was a tough era for anyone growing up in the ghetto. With no air conditioning or TV’s, youngsters turned to the streets during the oppressive summer months to play stickball. Stickball had to be played on the street amid New York City traffic. The pitchers were required to deliver the ball to the batter on one bounce, which required blacktop surfacing; there was no asphalt or blacktop surfacing in Central Park making playing there improbable. To get started we needed a ‘Spalding’ pink rubber ball which would cost us twenty cents at the corner candy store. We would chip in whatever pennies we had in our pockets and regularly come up short. This would require us to steal loose, empty milk bottles from the bodega on the corner and re-sell them back to the store for 3 cents deposit per bottle. Next, we would need a ‘stickball bat.’ For some reason the playing of stickball was outlawed by the NYPD which made it a requirement for cops to interrupt our games and dispose of our bats by tossing them into the New York City sewer system. In order to replace the bats we would comb through the building basements until we could find an unattended broom and surreptitiously appropriate it. Then we would set fire to the bristles and when they were disposed of we’d have our stickball bat. We would use a manhole cover as home plate and another as second base. First and third bases would be car fenders parked on opposite sides of the street (until, of course, the cars were moved.)We would gather six or eight players choose sides then play until dark or until the cops returned. After the game, we would sit on the stoops and play music. Some, like Orlando Marin, Joe Cuba, Joey Pastrana or Joe Quijano would jam while playing bongos, congas or beat on garbage can lids while the rest of us across the street sang ‘doo-wop’. Every now and then the singers would saunter over to where the Latin rhythms emanated and combined our songs with the Mambo rhythms, creating a mystical blend of a tribal rhythm & blues amalgamation. Years later, it occurred to me that if these sounds could be recreated in a recording studio it would create something refreshing for the teenagers of New York and we recorded an album by the “107th Street Stickball Team. The singing group actually kept us out of trouble. In those days, every street had a gang to protect “the turf”. Our gang, The Royal Cobras, got into many scuffles with the surrounding gangs. Every now and then a poor teenage soul was ordered by their parents to buy an item at a store in our neighborhood. That made him open game for our guys. The poor kid would get jumped, beaten and forbidden to cross over to our turf again. The same would happen to us if we invaded forbidden turf. This made it difficult for us to attend parties or visit girl friends living on the east side. |
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