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Mariachi: The Rodney Dangerfield of Music · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of I
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Ah yeah, yeah yeah, And welcome to the podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm Josh and there's Chuck. Jerry's hanging out here wearing
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: a giant sombrero, and that makes this stuff you should know.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I was actually gonna sing that that's funny that you
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: thought of the same dang thing. That's that's the one.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: That's the one that I've you know, I grew up on. Yeah.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: I think I told the story once before about when
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: it's funny how these things you remember from your childhood.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: When I was in kindergarten, they taught us the Mexican
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: hat dance, and we danced around uh not hats, but
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: spray can lids, like like like spray pant lids. Why
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: because you know, we didn't have little sombreros, Okay, And
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: it's one of those things we're looking back like bless him.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: They were teaching us about another culture, which is great
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: for a five year old, but like looking back all
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: these you know, white suburban at Landing kids dancing around
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: spray pant spray paint candle its is a little little cringe.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: It's an it's a weird, like at a detail, but
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I'll bet it was still adorable to see. You know,
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: it's an odd substitute, like we didn't decorate them. I
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: would get that they were just the lids, right, no
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: brims or anything like that. So it's more of like
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: a fees dance. Yeah. Sure, it was like a fest
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Hits minus the tassel. So Chuck, I just want to say, um,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: if this pick is from your recent trip to the Yucatan,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: that is a vacation that just keeps giving. Now it's
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: not at all. We heard no mariachi down there. Uh.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I don't know why I thought of this. I'm not
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: sure other than the fact that it's a music that
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: I like and it's a fun like when people are
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: over and it's a Friday night where happy hour and
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: up some cocktails. Putting on a mariachi mix is always
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a good move. Uh. And you know, when I lived
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: in l A, I lived in a Mexican neighborhood in
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: a largely Mexican neighborhood and a Mexican or Mexican American
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: apartment complex. I was the only gringo there and so
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the music was just blaring out at all times, and
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: I really got tired of it for a while, but
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: it was in getting tired of it that I got
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: an appreciation for it and ending up loving it. If
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: that makes sense, that's really cool. Yeah, it does make sense. Actually,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: you have subsumed it by attrition, I guess, yeah, yeah, sure,
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: so yeah this was your pick um. I don't know
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: that I ever would have gotten around to this one
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: because I'm not like a huge mariachi fan. Got nothing
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: against it, but like, my exposure to mariachi is sadly
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: like speedy guns all is Um cartoons and like Mexican
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: restaurant visits. But now that I've researched it some I
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: have kind of developed more of an appreciation of it
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: than I had before. But one of the things that
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: struck me about it, Chuck, is that if you listen
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to like old mariachi and like relatively new mariachi, like
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: there's a some there's something about there's like a through
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: line where it's very clearly the same kind of music
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: after decades and decades centuries. Really you could say, um,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: and I think that's really cool that it's not like
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: like I went to look for disco mariachi and yeah,
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: it doesn't exist like I found some I found like
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: a mariachi band doing covers of some disco favorites, like
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: you know, but it was still mostly disco with a
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: little bit more horn than than normal. Um. But it's
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: like a really like I don't want to say unchanged
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: because it's definitely evolved in other kinds of merged with
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: other kinds, you know, but but it's you can recognize
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: it from nineteen hundred to nine as mariachi music. Yeah,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: And you know, I think one of the through lines
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: that I saw, and it's something we talked a little
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: bit about before we recorded was and I think the
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: name of this episode of already titled the Rodney Danger
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Field of Musical Genres, But it's a it's a genre
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: that I think is always worked at gaining respect globally
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and among you know, the intelligentia and the classical community.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: And I think part of that is rooted in some
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: just inherent racism that America feels towards Mexico, which I
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: think is just something that's that's just there. It's a
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: country that is our closest neighbor, obviously Canada as well,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: but uh, it's an interesting place and that you know,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: fifty percent of the country, I think, since the pandemic
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: lives below the poverty line, but it's also like a
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: top ten country economically globally, which was hard to believe.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So it's Mexico, I think has a lot of people
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: living in poverty and a lot of very wealthy people,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: so a big wealth gap there. Uh. And this music
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: is a part of their proud tradition. And I think
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: little things have happened over the years, and we'll talk
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: about a lot of them that have helped kind of
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: uh up their respect anti where it's not just a
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: Mexican restaurant music to two people here and around the world.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: And I think like movies like Coco coming along, like
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: just little things like that have happened over the years
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that really helped kind of bring it to the four
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: where people realize what a kind of cool music it is.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Uh. And yeah that's just because you know,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: people's exposure to it is strictly a Mexican restaurant doesn't
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: mean like that's where it exists like that. It's moved
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: into concert halls, um Uh, it's moved into like schools
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: and colleges like it's it's it's it's definitely gained a
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: lot of respect. But I think what you're saying is
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: is is correct. You know largely that there is a
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: certain sense of, if not racism, at least xenophobia or
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: a sense of foreignness. Yeah, that probably prevents like the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: average waspy American from getting really deep into mariachi. Um.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: But I think also in this this stands from Mexico too,
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: that it's a it's a classist thing too, because mariachi
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: music is rooted in the rural areas. It's a proud
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: rural worker tradition. It's like super um egalitarian in that sense.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: And you know, people of you know, certain classes, they
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: don't like that kind of stuff. They find it low brow,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: or they they it doesn't appeal to them or whatever.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: And so I think that even as mariachi has evolved
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: over the decades, that same old kind of grudge or
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: view that's become outdated over time to a large extent,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: still remains among some people agreed, this is one of
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: our best interests yet. All right, So let's go back
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: to the beginning. How where did mariachi come from? Uh? Well,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: and by the way, we're I'm really worked on a
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: lot of these pronunciations. I'm gonna do my best, but
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: as always, we try, We're we're gonna try. But yeah,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of pronunciation challenges up in this one,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: all up in here. Uh So, we gotta go back
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: to colonial Mexico and the original form of the music
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: came and this is pretty obvious. Is obviously some Spanish influence,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: but something that may surprise folks is that also enslaved
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Africans that the Spanish brought to the colonies, a lot
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: of the rhythmic traditions of that music is present in
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: the origins of mariachi as well. Yeah, and there are
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: a lot of people say, plus there was indigenous music
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: at the time, so those things always just kind of
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: blended and gelled together, which is pretty um appropriate for
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: mariachi as we'll see over the decades, like it's they've
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: not hesitated to be like, oh I really like that sound.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I didn't think of using that instrument and incorporating it
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: to make a new a new sound. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: you gotta go to western Mexico to uh Jalisco, where
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: we talk about a musical form called sun Holly Sience.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I know, I got that one right, because prexit over
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: and over, uh and the crack. I don't want to
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: have practice for nothing, holly, yeah, very nice, okay, Um,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I think we should each pronounce everything, okay, and then
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Jerry can just blend them together. Had a little guitar
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: own on top of it, and we're all set. Uh.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: So that music was happening in Jalisco and western Mexico,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: but it was you know, similar kinds of music were
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: happening in other places in Mexico. And like you said,
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: these were farm workers. They would play for special occasions,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: they would Uh. It's interesting in the early mariachi did
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: not have horns, which is almost hard to believe because
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: horns are so vital to it now. But violence, guitar
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and harp were sort of the first mariaci instruments. Yeah,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: mostly string string ensembles, right, and they were they were
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: songs performed by the peasant class working on haciendas. And
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: at the time before the Mexican Revolution UM that ran
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: roughly from nineteen and nineteen twenty UM, there was a
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: feudal system essentially that that that was the hacienda um
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and the people who worked on those haciendas were very
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: much exploited. But one of the jobs you could have
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: is a mariachi performer. I got the impression like, if
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: you're a mariachi performer, that was your job. You didn't
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: necessarily work in the fields or do anything else. That
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: was the role you played on the hacienda. And the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: thing is that kind of um inequality is just unsustainable.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter what century you live in, it doesn't
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: matter what country you live in. Eventually, as one group
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: is just so thoroughly exploited by another group, that the
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: exploited groups going to revolt. And that was the basis
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: of the Mexican Revolution, that it was a class revolution
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: where the workers rebelled and said no more, You're not
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: going to exploit us anymore. Right, And as you'll see,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: they wrote a lot of music about this stuff in
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: the form of the mariachi songs. But um Kokula, which
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: is in Jalisco outside of Guadalajara, is um where some
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: people say it started, even though you can't draw like
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: written history there. If you want to look at the
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: word in print, which is something we always seem to
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: talk about the first time we see things written down, Uh,
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: it is a letter from a Catholic priest in eighteen
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: fifty two that was denouncing it, basically saying, you know,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: these big drunken festivals in this music that you're doing,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: uh is a problem. Please cut it out right, signed
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: local crank priests exactly. So, Um, that was the like
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: you said the first time in print, right, and yeah
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: before that it was a local place name. Um. But
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: really Mariachi as we understand it, the word the etymology,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: I guess, has long been kind of disputed. And here's
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: the little fun fact. I had no idea about. Uh.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: The French, as in France occupied Mexico from eighteen sixty
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: two to eighteen sixty six. Did you know that? Sure
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: you knew that. I did. I think I've seen that
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: in movies. I had no idea. The only reason I
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: wouldn't know anything. So so during that for your occupation
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of Mexico by the French, apparently local musicians would be
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: hired to perform at weddings. So there was a longstanding
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: myth that the word mariachi was a kind of a
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: local butchering of the French word mariage. Yeah, not true, No,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: that's not. Actually the answers a lot cooler. I think, well,
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: they still don't know for sure. I mean, my money
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: is on the tree. Is that what you were talking about? Yeah?
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: What else could it possibly be? I don't know, because
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: there's a tree, it's separated out differently, but it is
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: the word mariachi. It's just mariachi. That sounded totally Italian.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: That's probably probably put the stress in the wrong thing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: But that was a tree that legend has it, or
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: people say at least was the wood that they made
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: the instruments out of, and that I don't know, that
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: seems pretty convincing to me. For sure. It was an
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: indigenous Cora word too, so hats off to them as well. Um,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: there's another there's one more that I'm like, I don't
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: know about this one, but they're they're like, no, the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: g is from the Cora language, but the maria refers
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: to the Virgin Mary, and that these were religious songs.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: At first, I didn't see anything about these being particularly
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: religious at any point in time, did you not? Really?
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: And I mean, I'm sure they're religious mariachi songs, but
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: most of the stuff I've seen is about like working
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: on the farm, or these love ballads and stuff like that. Yeah,
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: or just getting you know, crunk, getting down. Yeah. So,
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: like I said, the hacienda system, I don't believe it
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: actually ended, but I think it was very much disrupted
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: during and right after the revolution, and as a result,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: there was you know a lot of people who were
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: displaced as workers, including mariachi musicians, who no longer had
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: like a regular gig on the local hacienda. And so
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: whenever there's a disruption in the countryside, those people tend
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: to make it towards city centers to see if there's
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: work or other ways to support themselves. There's a big
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: influx of people to Mexico City around the nineteen teens
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: in twenties, and a lot of them were mariachi musicians,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: and they brought their different traditions with them, because depending
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: on what state you're talking about, each state has its
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: own kind of musical mariachi tradition. And in that in
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: that era in in Mexico City is when they first
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: started to really kind of blend together. Yeah, I think,
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: I mean, I love this kind of thing where different
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: whether it's food or musical styles, when different people of
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: different cultures all of a sudden are living among each
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: other and start sharing opinions and ideas. That's just I
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: don't know. I think that the best stuff in history
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: is created that way. And that's what happened there. And
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: they brought their musics together. This is when band sizes grew.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: It was not necessarily like a quartet like it had been.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: All of a sudden, you could see Mariachi in the
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: you know, like twelve people playing in a band. This
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: in big time game changer. This is when horns came
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: into the mix. Uh. And you know, basically this was
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: what nineteen teens you said in twenties, maybe yeah, Mariachi
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: would never be the same after the introduction of those trumpets, no,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: for sure. Um And apparently in pretty short order they
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: figured out how to do you know, more than one trumpet.
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: As we'll see, there's actually one band that was responsible
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: for that. But one of the other things they started
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: doing two was wearing charos, those um cowboy outfits, the
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: very like slick cowboy outfits with like the short waistcoat
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: and the tight pants and the ankle length boots and
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: a wide bow tie and a big sombrero that that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: emerged from this era as well too, where all of
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: a sudden, these guys were in the big city wearing
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: peasant guard with straw hats. This is probably a little
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: ghost all of a sudden, and they were making pretty
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: good money. So you could outfit like a dozen Mariotti
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: musicians and matching outfits and you know, probably attract even
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: more money because people would want to hire you because
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: you had that kind of thing going on. And it
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: became a tradition pretty quick. Can I admit something. Yeah,
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: if it were not for uh being accused of cultural appropriation,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I would wear Chatto clothing at every fancy event I
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: ever went to. So I think it's so cool looking.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: I love it. Uh, And I think I might just
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: have to settle for a nudy suit. Uh you know
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: what those are? Birthday? No, you probably do. It was
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: there was a tailor and he was a lot of things.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: In fact, he might make an interesting episode one day
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: named Nudy Cone. And he made these suits that uh
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: like Graham Parsons war and Ryan Stone cowboy type stuff
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: with like roses embroidered on the suits and all that stuff. Uh.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: So nuty suits became really popular with like the earliest
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: alt country scene and like rodeos and stuff. So I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: think I could get away with a newty suit, okay,
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: but why you're not part of the cowboy culture, you're
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: appropriating that. Why is it any different? Like why couldn't
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: you just wear a charo suit? I think if you
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: think something is cool and you're wearing out of respect
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and because you think it's super cool, not because for
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: whatever reason. If you're just positively wearing something, I don't
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: see how somebody could legitimately accuse you of cultural appropriation.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: And if they did, I think they'd be wrong. No,
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I'm with you. It would be from fear of being
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: accused of that more than anything being accused. I think
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: because people would probably think, like Tom Hanks showing up
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in Big in that thing, they would think I was
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: being funny or making a joke, where I'm like, no,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: I actually think I look really cool because this is
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: a really cool suit and the tailors that make this
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: stuff are amazing and I would love to show it off.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So the difference would be you would show up and
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: just not say anything about your charo suit. I don't
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: know I would be the way to do it, okay,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: because you're not trying to be like, hey, get a
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: load of this, get up you're just like, this is
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: what I'm wearing. If you're wearing a regular suit, I
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: wouldn't say anything about that. So I definitely shouldn't have
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a squirting flower in my lopell no, or like a
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: little a spray paint. Can cap you do a little hat? Answer? Yeah,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: I would have a little elastic chord that hangs like
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: like a little tiny bell hat pat totally. Uh No, anyway,
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: I just think those are super cool, and I think
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: nudy suits would be maybe a short stuff. Okay, I'm
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: glad you explained nudy because I think no, there's not
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: a T. It's in U d I E. Okay, So yeah,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: that's exactly. That was a guy's name. Hey, you want
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to take a break and come back because we're like
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: eighteen minutes into this great one. Hey, let's do it. Okay,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: we'll be right back everybody. So one more thing, Chuck
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: about this kind of diaspora towards Mexico City. Um, there
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: was there was. There was a change in how they
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: performed too. They started performing in like public places, in
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: like bars and plazas. Um. And they also started to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: be more mobile. They would move around in part because
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: they were busking basically, so if there was a somebody
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: that looked like they might be a paying customer, they
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: might follow them around for a little bit and see
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: if they could get them to pay for a song
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: or request a song or something like that. So that mobility,
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: the charos, suits, and the expansion and like rearrangement of instruments,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: including the horns, those were all big things that happened
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: in the twenties. Yeah, And I think that tradition when
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: you see a small mariachi quartet moving around a Mexican restaurant,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: it's sort of rooted in that tradition. And I think
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: that's another reason I didn't have an appreciation now that
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: I remember back is whenever that happened when I was
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: at dinner with my family and I was a kid,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I could just see the air leave my dad's body
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: and just like he hated it so much. He hated
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: any attention at all, being like pointed publicly his way,
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: like at Disney World. Theory like let me pick somebody
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: from the audience, if they ever looked at my dad,
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: he would just shake his head. I can not smile
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: or anything, whereas I could not be more different. I'm
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: like raising my hand wanting to jump up and volunteer
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: for whatever. And I love it when the mariaci comes
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: by the table, even though Atlanta doesn't have nearly enough
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: of that. UM. And I think just word of advice
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: if you never if you feel awkward and you don't know,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: like do I eat or not? Uh yeah, you just
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: keep eating and like smile at them and just enjoy
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: the whole thing. I don't think it means, hey, stop
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: what you're doing and only look at us. It's it's
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: a part of the lively atmosphere of enjoying the food.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: But you can also, if you're in your dad mindset,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: order a double margarita stat Uh. Yeah, he didn't drink though.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, I'll bet he was super He really
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: didn't have to discomfort. Uh. So we're talking nineteen fifties
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: about this time and as uh, this is when we
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: had a couple of trumpets come on the scene. Uh.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: And again we'll talk about the two gentlemen who worked
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: out how to how to do that. Uh. You had
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: a few violins usually, and then you had two really
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: key instruments, um that are basically ubiquitous in any madiachi.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: One is the vihuela, which you might call a guitar,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: but it's a little different. It's smaller, it's got five strings. Uh,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: it's it's higher pitched, so the G, D and A
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: strings are all tuned in octave higher, so it sounds
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a little different. But it's got those nylon strings. Uh yeah, yeah, Well,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I mean you strum it with your fingers as well,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: but uh, fingerpicking and strumming. Uh. And then you've got
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the really the heart of the band, and the most
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: important strument is that guitar on that I talked about,
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: and that's that it sort of looks like a stand
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: up bass with a super super short neck that you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: are playing. It's really really big bodied and uh. This thing, though,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: is not plucked like a standard bass. It also has
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: five strings, although there are some five string basses, but
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: traditionally you think of a four string bass. Uh, but
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: it's not plucked. You're playing octaves on the strings with
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: a guitar on, yeah, and you're playing it like a guitar,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: So it looks like a hilarious, oversized, novelty guitar until
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: you hear it and then you're like, okay, it's pretty awesome. Yeah,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: but that's the whole rhythm section. Because one thing you
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: will never hear someone say is did you get a
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: load of that drummer in the mariachi band? Right, Yeah,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: it's true. That huge, deep, hollow body like produces all
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of the sound you need from that. Yeah, it's it's
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: pretty great. It's really a key some other things though
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: you might you might overhear people saying it a mariachi
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: show is wow, wasn't that accordion player amazing? Where the
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: French horns or the flout ist even because they like
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: wind instruments and they like accordions, and one of the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: things that they'll play, as we'll see are things like waltz's,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: polka's And that was because of the influence of German
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: immigrants to northern Mexico and southern Texas in the nineteenth century,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that that that music influenced mariachi as well. That's right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: One of the big respect boxes was ticked in when
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: UNESCO came forward and said, mariachi the string music. The
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: song in the trumpet is now officially added to what
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: is called the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: of Humanity, which is a great sounding list. I love
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: the whole intangible aspect. I went to a place in Kyoto,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: UM that was like a bamboo forest, and Unesco added
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: the sound of wind moving through that bamboo floors to
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that same lists. We should, at the very least, we
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: should do this list. We could just read it off
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and be like that one's awesome too, here's another. Yeah,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: I love it. Okay, So yeah, that's a huge deal.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: I mean, and that was two thousand eleven. So Mariatta,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it's like this is this is never going anywhere um
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't going to anyway. There was a guy
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: who bring in Jalisco's second Ministry of Culture. His name
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: was Alejandro Cravotto, and he said at the time that
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: there's no Mexican musical musical expression more widespread throughout the world.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: And he also said that it's so much a part
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: of Mexican people's lives that they they hear it. It's
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: played from their baptism to their burial. And it's absolutely true.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: They play baptisms, they play funerals, and they play everything
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: in between. Two yeah, but it's interesting when that happened.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: There was a TV musician and a TV house named
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Cornelio Garcia you like that that said this happened, that said,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you know, Maryachi still isn't getting the respect among academics
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: here in our own country. Uh. And you'll see that's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: one of the sort of recurring themes over and over
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: is within Mexico itself, it's gained more acceptance in the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: US than it has in some parts of Mexico among
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: higher classes. Yeah, and I think that's that kind of
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: classic's grudge that I was referring to is still around,
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: you know, because again, it's the music of the revolution,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: and the revolution was the revolution of the peasants, and
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: it's really prideful, patriotic music, you know in a lot
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: of ways too, and it's the music of Mexico. There's
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: a Mariachi song called El Sonde la Negra and it's
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: um considered Mexico's second national anthem. Yeah, so it's it's
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: like it's just so woven into the fabric that, Yeah,
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: it's pretty tough. Like if if you live in Mexico,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: if you're born and raised Mexican intellectual and you don't
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: like Mariachi, I'm sure you just have a miserable life
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: down there. You're the Mexican version of my dad. Uh
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: so you mentioned the different musical sounds incorporating things like
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: waltz and polka. Uh. Fan dango is also another like
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: it these African rhythms that we were talking about, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: they have you know, obviously the ballads and the waltzes
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: and things like that, but some other uh sort of
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: song styles. Uh. One of them is called rancheria. And
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: these were very much songs of the Mexican Revolution. These
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: are the ones that are really the patriotic songs of
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: the peasant class talking about how great and that's what's
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: so cool about it too, was like these songs weren't
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: talking about Maybe some did, but it seems like they
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: were never talking about oppression. They were celebrating the farm
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: and celebrating ranch life and stuff like that, right exactly, Yeah,
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: I'm romanticizing it. You could even say, Um, there's a
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: very famous song called the valve Are evolve Are? I
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: think it's maybe how you'd say it. Sure it was
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: in practice that one. It was very famously performed by
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: a named Vincente Fernandez known as El Rey de la
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Musica Renchera. And this guy is my speed, Like he
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: he looks like a total tough guy from the seventies,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: but he also looks like he probably smells really good,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: and he's like, um singing this this like one plaintive
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: love song where his heart's clearly broken. Um in a
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: Mexican restaurant with a horse in there with him, and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: he plays his song on the jukebox and starts singing it,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: and it's really awesome. So I really kind of like
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: VINCENTI Fernandez as of yesterday. Yeah, that's a good song.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing a lot of ballads when I lived
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: in Yuma. I my sort of best friend for that years,
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: this guy named Mark, And this was like a big
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: cultural shift for me to all of a sudden, my
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: best friend was this Mexican guy, and I hung out
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: at his house a lot and just got kind of
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: thrown into like the real deal culture as opposed to
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: the kid dancing around the spray paint lid. And it
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: was just they were also sweet and so nice and
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: and Mark's dad, like I remember seeing this picture on
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: the fridge of Mark's dad in the seventies and he
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: was like he had these sideburn shops and was riding
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: a Chopper motorcycle and was wearing like a beaded vest,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and I was like, do you have any idea how
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: much cooler your dad is than mine? And it was
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: like your dad was it is just like the coolest
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: looking dude I've ever seen. And I remember like his
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: mom would play these great Mexican uh mariachi ballads and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I like the ballads, Okay, I really like the up beat,
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: upbeat stuff a lot more, but it's kind of fun.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: It's like these these ballads are so like sort of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: slow and languid and syrupy, and you could they just
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: feel very sincere, Yeah, for sure, like in in some
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: some places gut wrenching UM. In uh last June, a
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: bunch of mariachi I think something like fifty of them
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: showed up at Uvaldi to basically sing um and just
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: just two mourn with everybody there. And there's plenty of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: videos on it. And if you want to just have
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: your guts wrenched, like go watch that. It's It's just
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: really amazing how um just applicable this music is to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: all these different like UM events or or occasions. You know, yeah, absolutely,
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Uh that song you were singing, by the way, that
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: are you kind of Lee read sang it with the
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I I ai uh that is very famous ranch era
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and that song is uh uh ci Alito Lindo. That's
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the that's the one that everyone has heard. Everyone has
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: heard either that or Laka, which is not a ranch era,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: that is called a corrido. Yeah, so I am not
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a harderd percent certain that there's a clear dividing line
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: between ranchers and currito's because the Voliver Volver song is
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: it tells a story. So that's one of the defining
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: characteristics of a carito. It's a ballad, and it's not
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: necessarily just about like love lost or even love game.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: They can be a crime, it can be about heroism.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: And I saw on a site called Remes cla Um
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: that that's usually paired with like a moral lesson of
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: some sort. So it's like a ballad basically, is the
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: is the best way to put it, as we already did. Yeah,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: and you know what, this is a great time to
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: mention that I was wrong. We had our sort of
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: ballad disagreement a while back when I said that ballads
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: were love songs, uh, and we had a lot of
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: people right in they were like no, no, no, like
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: your own Billy Joel Chuck saying the ballad Ability to
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Kid and uh, the Ballad of Curtis Lowe by Leonard Skinner.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: They're like these they're just story songs. But I think
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: I just was thinking more love ballads and that's a subgenre. Sure. Yeah,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: so correction made. So wait a minute, were they saying
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: Josh was right? Oh yeah, you were way right? How
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: did I miss this bunch of emails? Then I forgot
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: to frame them and sin the view like yeah, but
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: I have like a filter set on my outlook anytime
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: it says the phrase Josh is right or any variation,
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: and it goes right to the top of you have.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: You have searches out for the words correct. Sometimes I
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: hit up people who have already sent in listener mail
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: just to kind of goad them into sending those kind
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: of emails. Uh. And then the final little style that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: will cover is when we mentioned at the beginning, Uh,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: the son hallis Salencia and that is the original folk style. Yeah,
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: that's that. Yeah. That elsn de Lenegra, the second um
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: national anthem of Mexico, and that's usually accompanied by a
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: dance called zappa tied. Hey I nailed this first time.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: I would say tato oh man, I actually surprised myself.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: I had that like, um like little or fanany like
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: like surprised look, and I still didn't get it. Right,
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: Come here, Sandy, come mere girl. Right, but that's like
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: a heel stomping foot dance. That's pretty cool if you
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: just look that up. That's what we were doing in kindergarten. Okay, okay, gotcha,
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I got you. You're doing this still so embarrassing, tiato.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: I guess so we called it the Mexican hat dance,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: which is probably wrong too. I'm quite sure it was.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: It sounds. Yeah, of those two, I'm pretty sure Mexican
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: hat dances the wronger in nineteen seventies America. Of those, uh,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: that's right. I guess. The last thing we should mention
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: about the music um itself. Like the sound is one
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: of my favorite parts of this or any music, which
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: is multiple voices singing together. I love choral music. I
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: love three, four or five part harmonies. I love There
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: probably is no just thing as five part harmony. Why not?
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Is there a limit? I don't think so,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: only in your mind? Oh hold on, uh yeah, but
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: there's there aren't. I mean there are there are singers
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: that have backing mariachi bands, but there in a mariachi band,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: there's typically not what's called elites singer that someone may
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: take a lead on the song, but it's usually a
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: lot of people singing at once. Yeah, it's like Chicago,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: basically everybody can sing right and they take turn. You'll
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: actually you'll actually see uh, like you know, a guy
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: stopped playing um his trumpet and moved to the front
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: and start singing on a on a new song. Like
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: that's just kind of how laid back it is. One
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: of the other cool things about mariotchi two is if
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you watch, like if you watch the violinists, they'll be
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: like three or four of them just standing there potentially,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: and they'll all start to bring their bow to their
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: instrument at different times. It's not it's not this precision timing.
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: And because there's multiple instruments, one can come in like
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: you know, a half measure late or something like that,
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: and it makes no difference. Was there you can't hear
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it in the first place. But it's just like it's
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: not meant to be this uh intensely perfect, imprecise music.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: And and that's actually seen in a way that it's
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: passed along like you, um, you don't you can now
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: as I I think the sixties. You can go to schools,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: um sometimes public schools like elementary and middle and high schools.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: But there are some college curriculum that UM teach you mariachi.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: But traditionally it was passed down just by practicing, like
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: it wasn't written down. It was like here's how you
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: play see Elito Lindo, you know, um, and you would
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: pick that up. Or else you go watch your favorite
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: mariachi band in the town plaza and you know, basically
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: be a groupie long enough that they'd let you start
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: playing with them. That kind of thing. That was Coco.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Did you ever see Cocoa? I did not know. One
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: of the best uh movies, animated films. It's just fantastic
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: that but one definitely the best looking animated film I've
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: ever seen. But that was the kid in Coca was
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: like a little mariachi groupie would and would just like
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and you know, his parents didn't want him hanging around
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Like all of this stuff is kind of spot on, uh,
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: really good movie thown, great music, UM, but mariachi finally
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: would make its way to the United States long before
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Cocoa in the nineteen forties. In Los Angeles obviously has
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: always had a strong proud Mexican American community there and
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: then up through the nineteen sixties, which during the zoot
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: suit Um episode, we talked a lot about the Chicano
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: movement in the sixties where Mexican immigrant communities all of
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: a sudden kind of stood up for themselves and organized
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: and it was very much akin to the Black Power movement,
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: and they adopted a lot of mariachi songs has kind
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of part of their movement. Yeah, and some of they repurposed.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: There's a famous song called de caloris Um that talks
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: about how beautiful the landscape is in spring, and they
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: basically repurposed it to to be more of a metaphor
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: for how, you know, the beauty of different people of color,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: you know. Um. Other ones were actually written. There's a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: song called l Pickett Sign It's hilarious. Did you listen
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: to it? I did, and it doesn't It doesn't sound
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: very mariachi. It more sounds like a nineteen sixties acoustic
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: guitar protest song, which is exactly what it was. But
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: it was, you know, part of the um the United
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: farm Workers Union strike and the larger Chicano movement too.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: A big respect box again was checked in the eighties
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: when Linda Ronstat came out with her album, UH concionis
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Dami Padre And this was a very big deal. I
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: don't know if you remember this at the time, but
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: it was. Linda ron Stat was a huge star. And
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: I can't recommend the documentary about her enough. It's called
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: The Sound of My Voice. One of the great UH
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: singers of all time UH in any genre is Linda Ronstat.
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: And she has Mexican heritage, and not many people know
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: this because she's very fair skin. Her name is ron
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: Stat is German, but she that's why she made that album,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: and she did interviews at the time, and and the
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: documentary talks a lot about her Mexican heritage, and it
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: was I think she's part German too, and that was
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: like you were talking about the German influence in Mexico.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: It was she. It was a big melting pot and
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: she was a part of that melting pot. I think
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: her uh, either father or grandfather was Mexican. And so
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: she came out with this album and it was huge.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: It went double platinum. And this was in the like
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: mid late nineteen eighties, and it gave a huge boost
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: to the mariachi music. Yeah, and she was playing with
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: like some legit mariachi bands. I think she hosted basically
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: three of them on her album. She played with one
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: of the mariachi Vargus on Saturday Night Live. Yeah, I
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: mean it was a giant, enormous thing. I don't remember
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: when it happened, but I can just imagine America being like,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: wait what and then listen being like, oh, this is
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: really good. But that also explains a longstanding mystery that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: I never understood before, which is why on the Mr
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: Plow episode of The Simpsons, when Barney is hanging out
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: with Linda Ronstead, she tries to adapt the Mr. Plow
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: song into Spanish. Really yeah, or she's like that funny
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: Senior Plow nois macho solda mente umbaraco, which Mr Plow
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: is not mainly only a drunk, and it's like it
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: lasts like to three seconds, but no idea. Man, that
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: was so random. God, don't you love that when a
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Simpsons joke hits, you know, twenty years later exactly thirty
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: years actually, that episode came. That is crazy. All right, Well,
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: let's take another break. I'm gonna go get my spray
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: paint candle it. That's really tough to say, isn't it.
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: It really is that stumble you say it, spray paint
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: candle it. Yeah. See, I've been practicing in my head
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: because I knew this moment would come. I've been stumbling
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: over the whole time. So I'm gonna keep rex in
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: saying that and We'll be right back. Spray paint candle it.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Very nice, everybody, very nice? All right. So now we
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: are in the mid twentieth century and Mexican cinema is
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden finding its way into theaters all
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: over the world, and that means Mexican music is going
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: to be introduced in more places all over the world,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: which includes mariachi and uh, depending on where you are
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: in the world, it might have taken hold more than others.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: And this is I think it is a really cool
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: thing when something from one disparate culture makes this way
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: to another place, and for some like Hasslehof in Germany,
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: like all of a sudden, that place really loves this thing.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: And that happened in Yugoslavia. One of the reasons is
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: at time political leaders there um didn't want a lot
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: of Soviet music, they didn't want a lot of American music,
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and they saw this Mexican music as neutral politically, So
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: it was a little more not encouraged, I guess, but
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: not shunned. And all of a sudden there were some
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: parallels being drawn between the revolutionary traditions in both of
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: those countries, and even today in places like Serbia and
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Croatia there are mariachi bands that play. Yeah, and this
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: wasn't like a fringe thing like mariachi. From what I
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: can tell, there's a really interesting Roads and Kingdom's article
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: that Olivia dug up Um that basically says like mariachi
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: was as as big as any music in Yugoslavia in
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: like this, I'm guessing fifties, sixties and seventies is the
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: impression that I had, maybe I ever heard Yugoslavia music.
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: I listened to a little bit, well, I listened to
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: a little bit of Mariochi. That's the other thing too.
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if it's a Serb playing um mariachi,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: a Japanese band playing mariachi or um. You know, somebody
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: from Texas playing Mariochi. It is the same music. Mm hmm,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: it's pretty cool. Yeah, I think honoring that tradition, like,
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: no one wants to put a spin on something that
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: is so much just what it is. I looked, Uh,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: there are Japanese mariachi, one called Mariachi Samurai that's been
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: around for twenty plus years. Uh. There is confirmed mariachi
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: band in China, as we will see there in the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: big festival happening this year. There is one from Sweden
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: that's showing up. So it definitely like took hold in
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: different parts of the world in the twentieth century. So, Chuck,
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: I feel like we should talk about some notable mariachi. Yeah,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: and we should also point out that when we say mariachi,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: that can be a band, that can be an adjective
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: describing the music, or it can be, as in the
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: case of the great Robert Rodriguez film El Medriachi, it
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: can be a single individual is a mariachi. I still
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: never saw it. I've only seen Desperado. I've seen it
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: like fifty times, but I never moved on to El Mariachi.
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: Well moved back. El Mirachi was the first one, and
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: then Desperado was kind of a remake, but kind of
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: not like Evil Dead an Evil Dead too. Yeah, very
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: much in uh yeah, in a lot of ways. You
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: should check out al Mariachi. It's the one he made
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: for like eight thousand dollars or whatever. I'll check it out.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: I'll check it out. I'm pressure me. It's good. Back off,
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: bub all right, go ahead, tough guy. Tell me some
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: some notable matriachi. One of the first actually was Um
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: the Quartetoko Linse Okay, I think that's that's good. There's
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: a guy named Husto Villa and he Um was the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: first mariachi to performer his His quartet was at the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: mex Can Capital back in nineteen o five. They were
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: also the first ones to put the som whacks as
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: early as nineteen o eight. So these guys were holding
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: it down because remember mariachi, it had only been fifty
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: sixty years old tops when it was first being started
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: to be played, you know, in the rural areas. So
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: these guys were the first in Mexico City playing this
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: stuff and at the turn of the twentieth century, that's right.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: We could also mention mariachi Vargas, this is a tough
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: one day to call it Lan will say it again
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: to caliplan O. Now I added a t to make
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: it I think you I think you said it right
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: the first time that that's a tough one. But um,
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: this was one of the more famous, uh maybe the
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: most famous and longest running mariachi group ever. They were
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: founded in eight and is still around today. Um. Obviously
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: over the years they just you know, swap people in
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: and out, but it's still still the same band under
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: the same name, which is pretty cool. And they really
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: kind of established the mariachi style from that region and
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: uh used that harp early on. Yeah, so they've been
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: playing since the nineteenth century. In the thirties, they made
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: their way to Mexico City because again this is like
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: now the epicenter of mariachi music. And I don't know
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: how or exactly what they did, but they were named
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: during that decade the official mariachi of the Mexico City
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: Police Department. I thought that was really funny, really, like
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: did they follow them around on like raids and stuff
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: and like playing music or that would be pretty great. Um.
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: They also started to show up in movies, um, and
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: they would play. They would back up a guy named
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: Pedro and Fonte, who was like a pretty huge star
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: during the Mexican Golden Nage of the thirties to the fifties. Um,
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: and these movies were typically vehicles of his and I'm
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: guessing those were a lot of the ones that made
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: their way to Yugoslavia. Yeah. Probably. Uh, let's just pick
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: out a couple of more of these, because we could
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: just list people all day long. I'm gonna well, since
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: we mentioned these guys earlier, we need to shout up
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: Miguel Martinez and Jezus Cordoba, who were from the band
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: uh Mariachi Mexico de Pepa Villa, and they were from
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties. And those are the two guys who
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: worked out how to use two trumpets together. Uh. And
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you just play the same thing at
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: the same time and the same melody, but that that
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: wasn't exactly what they did. Uh. They mixed it up
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: and I think they played in harmony and all of
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: a sudden, two trumpets were a thing. Yeah. There's another group,
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: Mariachi Los Camperos, that was founded by Nadi Kano Um
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and he really kind of like with this this existing
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: band into shape UM and got them into Carnegie Hall
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four. They were the first mariachi group
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to perform there. Um they opened their own restaurant, Lafonda
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: de los Camperos in l A. And that explains why
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: vincent A. Rodriguez was in is basically in a Mexican
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: restaurant where I guess just a restaurant, and in the
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: two videos I've seen of his UM, so that became
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: kind of like a thing like you would have your
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: own like home base where you could perform every every
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: night of the week if you wanted to, and also
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: probably attract more business. Plus you're making that restaurant money
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: on the side too. Yeah. And you know, highly recommend
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: if you go to Los Angeles you want to do
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: something fun one night. There are quite a few restaurants
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: there that have not the roaming the tables mariachi, but
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: the full like twelve to fourteen symphonic on a stage
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: performance scene. Uh. And there's a lot of fun to
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: go to these places and get some great food and
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: margarita's and and listen to these performances. So look it up.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: It's online. I don't have any I can the one
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: I went to I could texted my friend but he
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: never answered, so I can't remember the name of it.
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you another place to get all that same
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: experience as Epcot Center. Are you talking about Mariachi Cobra. Yeah,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: they've been the house um Epcot Mexico Pavilion Mariachi band
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: since two. Not a bad gig. That's a pretty good streak.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: That's a forty year streak. Well, I love it. They're
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: just like, why hird, Like these guys are great, so
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: let's just keep them on forever exactly, And that band
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: was like, Florida's pretty great, We're just gonna move here. Uh.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: If you notice we keep talking about men. Uh, Like
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: many many musical genres have we've seen that we've covered
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: throughout the years, and except for disco, actually notably is
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: that women have had a harder time getting a toe
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: in the pool, and Mariachi is no different. At the beginning,
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: it was exclusively men, and they were playing in these
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: sort of rough and tumble places where people were getting
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: boozed up on survesa and it was not seen as
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: an acceptable thing for women to do. In the mid
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: nineteenth century, in Mexico, but Olivia is keen to point
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: out there always have been exceptions. Beginning in the early
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds. That was a thirteen year old named uh
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Rosa Quirino who had played with male mariachi bands, but
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: uh eventually went on to lead her own group and
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: apparently used to carry a piece to protect herself on
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: the road because it was dangerous business. I also saw
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: that she would um threaten heckler's and people who harassed
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: her while she and her band were playing with it.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: She would say, a gentlemen, we are working and she
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: would produce her gun and just let them see like
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: she was not to be trifled with. She also wore
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: like bandal aros like Pancho Villa. Oh cool, Yeah, she
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: sounds pretty goods Uh. In the early um, I'm sorry,
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: late nineteen forties, Uh, they're start. You started to see
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: some bands that were all women so mariachi groups in
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: Mexico City. Eventually they would make their way to Los
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Angeles in the US. The first all female uh Mariaci
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: group was last Lancritas and this was an Alamo, Texas
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seven. And I believe there is even now
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: an all l G B t Q plus mariachi group
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: with the very first transgender woman in the history of
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: the genre, with Natalia Melndez. Yeah, mariachi are courious, are courious. Yeah,
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I mean things have come a long way. Yeah. There's
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: also another one worth mentioning Florida tot tolo Achi. They're
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: from New York. I think there are four piece and
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: they are really amazing too. But even even still today,
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: even with all of these like really great all female
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: mariachi bands, um, they still are just kind of viewed
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: differently than the male performers are. There was a anthropologist
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: in two thousand thirteen named Mary Lee m Holland, and
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: she basically just started studying the difference between male and
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: female mariachi performers and found that the male performers are
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: typically expect to represent like that kind of rural rough
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: and tumble body um humorous sometimes uh like just macho
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: kind of vibe, while the female performers were expected to
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: like be sober and like dignified and pretty. Don't forget
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: pretty had me pretty too, And then they were judged
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: on that, And I mean that's I guess it's to
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: be expected, but I get the impressions that the female
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: performers were still just be just treated differently depending on
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: where they performed, and they said, by and large they
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: tended to prefer performing at weddings and baptisms and that
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: kind of stuff rather than like at bars and like
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: the public applauses where the male performers typically go. Who
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: wants to be heckled, objectified and have to flash your gun? Yeah?
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly what else you got? Uh? I think that's about it.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: I mean the last section here is just where to
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: here's some mariachi music, and I think you can you
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: can hire him out in your town to play a
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: party if you want a bet you every big city,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: in many small towns, if you look up on the
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: inner webs, we'll have mariachi that you can hire. You
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: can go to look up and see if there are
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: Mexican restaurants that have that music you can go check out. Uh.
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: There are festivals now and and certainly Mexico and all
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: over the world where you can go here lots of mariachi,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: or just dial some up on your favorite music service. Yeah,
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: you could do a lot worse than um. Starting with
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Vincente Fernandez, Is that your guy? He is definitely he's
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: a good gateway mariachi performer. I think you know. Yeah,
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: by the way, shout out. Since I mentioned women in disco,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stone magazine just came up with with They're they're
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: doing a bunch of top two hundred lists. They came
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: out with their top two hundred dance songs of all time. Uh,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and not just disco, just like club anything. And Donna
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: Summer was number one with I Feel Love one of
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: the greatest songs ever. That's a great one. You're right. Well,
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: since Chuck doesn't have anything else and I don't either,
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: I think that means everybody that it's time for listener mail. Yeah,
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: we're gonna call this breaking news. It's fun when a
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know mystery and uh, Australia woke up
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: and started emailing us one after the other around midday
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Georgia time today because the Somerton Man has been solved.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Somerton Man mystery. I'm like, I'm bivalent about this. I
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel interesting. Did you want
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: it to remain a mystery? Yeah? I think I did. Actually,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think there was any harm in it remaining
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: a mystery forever and I almost feel like this guy
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: just kind of cheated. All right, Well here we go. Uh,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: long time listener, first time writer from Adelaide, Australia. I've
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: got excuse to right in. I thought you and your
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: listeners might be interested in breaking news. After exhuming the
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: body last year, Professor Derek Abbott Boo, a researcher at
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the University of Adelaide, has completed DNA matching. No, I
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: get what you mean. He didn't do like just good
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: detective work, unless you want to discount DNA is good
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: detective work. I mean, there's that show called The New
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: Detectives and it's all about this kind of thing. But
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: I don't know, all right, so we like the Old Detectives. Yeah,
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: in this in this particular case, I got no problem
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: with using DNA evidence to capture contemporary murderers. How about that, alright?
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Or two exculpate then exonerate. Yeah, childs All of a sudden,
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: don't you know who that is? Oh? Jackie Child's from Sinville. Yeah,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: totally all right? Great? Uh. Summer to man was Carl Webb,
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: an engineer and instrument maker from Melbourne who came to
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: Adelaide seeking a reconnection with his estranged wife. The name
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: of the tie t Keene was his brother in law.
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: The book of Persian poetry still a mystery. So you
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: got that going for you. That's good. Uh, And thanks
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: for the show. And that is from Rafe and many others.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: But Rafe was the first person we got to so
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: or they got to us. Yeah, thanks a lot, Rafe
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and everybody for sending that in. Um yeah, who knows. Well,
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: at least the Tamim shoot part is still a mystery. Okay, Yeah,
• 53:17
  Speaker 1: that's right. Well, if you want to get in touch
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: with us like Rafe did and kind of bring us
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: down at me at least, you can do that via email.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: Send it off to stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of I heart Radio.
• 53:33
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• 53:36
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