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El Raunch Oh! Grande
A while back I did an article on a recording by Mae West (link below). I actually hadn't listened to the album for decades, that happens when you have 20,000 albums. One of the songs on the album rang a bell but my brain wouldn't make any connections. Then, I woke up in the middle of the night and a clear vision of being in a record store and coming across this CD, El Raunch Oh! Grande . . . Latin Songs for Gringos, popped into my mind. I rummaged around until I found the CD and there it was: Mae West doing her thing with Tito Coral gloriously singing Havana For A Night.
film still
photo: Getty Images
The reason I so clearly remember buying the CD is when I saw it in the store ten years or so ago, I burst out laughing! At first because of the title then after reading the info on the CD, because of the series, The Love Handle Lounge In Hi-Fi! After my guffaws settled down I read the track list and discovered there was some really good music on it and it was produced by Rod McKuen, so, even though it was pressed by a low budget music company, LaserLight Digital, I went ahead and bought it. I believe I only paid a dollar or something like that, so, I didn't have much to lose.
Aside from the humorous theme of the CD, there are real gems on it. One is the Mexican Bolero song You Belong To My Heart composed by Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara with Xavier Cugat, his orchestra and Bing Crosby singing (link below). This song is dear to me because I remember my mom and dad dancing romantically to it in the living room when I was a little kid in the forties. I also remember them dancing to the song Frenesi by Artie Shaw at Sweets Ballroom (later called The Uptown Nightclub) on Telegraph Avenue at 19th Street in Oakland during the War (link below).
Frenesi was composed by Alberto Domínguez for the marimba, and adapted as a jazz standard by many artists. A hit version recorded by Shaw (with an arrangement by William Grant Still) reached number one on the Billboard pop chart on December 21, 1940, staying for 13 weeks and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1982. The Shaw recording was used in the soundtrack of the 1980 film based on the life of Jake LaMotta, Raging Bull (link below) starring Robert De Niro and directed by Martin Scorsese.
Raging Bull - 1980
photographer unknown
publicity photo
Rum & Coca Cola is a calypso song composed by Lionel Belasco with lyrics by Lord Invader. The song was copyrighted in the United States by entertainer Morey Amsterdam and was a big hit in 1945 for the Sisters.
I discovered there are other pressings in The Love Handle Lounge series with hilarious titles, Love Organs (all the songs have an organ in it somewhere), Safe Sax (ditto for this with a sax), How Big Is Your Woofer? and other double entendres Mae West would have just adored. The interesting thing all the songs on the various albums are straight and on the level; obviously, McKuen had a terrific sense of humor!
Tracklist:
1 – The Clebanoff Strings - Brazil
2 – Eddie Gomez - Los Maric'ones
3 – Mae West With Tito Coral - Havana For A Night
4 – Artie Shaw - Frenesi
5 – Marty Robbins - Up In The Air
6 – Xavier Cugat, Vocal By Dinah Shore - Yours (Quiereme Mucho)
7 – Eddy Howard - My Adobe Hacienda
8 – The Mertons - I’ll Catch The Sun
9 – Xavier Cugat & The Boys* / Pearl Bailey - El Rancho Grande
10 – Bing Crosby With Xavier Cugat - You Belong To My Heart
11 – The Andrews Sisters - Rum & Coca Cola
12 – Georgia Gibbs - Kiss Of Fire
13 – The Clebanoff Strings - Solamente Una Ves
Credits:
Producer – Rod McKuen
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Barcode: 018111281027
Label: LaserLight Digital – 12 810
Series: The Love Handle Lounge In Hi-Fi –
Format: CD, Compilation
Country: US
Released: 1996
Genre: Jazz, Latin, Pop
Style: Bossa Nova, Bossanova, Cha-Cha, Easy Listening, Mambo, Samba, Space-Age, Vocal, Ballad, Latin Jazz
Viewfinder links:
1 – The Clebanoff Strings - Brazil
2 – Eddie Gomez - Los Maric'ones
3 – Mae West With Tito Coral - Havana For A Night
4 – Artie Shaw - Frenesi
5 – Marty Robbins - Up In The Air
6 – Xavier Cugat, Vocal By Dinah Shore - Yours (Quiereme Mucho)
7 – Eddy Howard - My Adobe Hacienda
8 – The Mertons - I’ll Catch The Sun
9 – Xavier Cugat & The Boys* / Pearl Bailey - El Rancho Grande
10 – Bing Crosby With Xavier Cugat - You Belong To My Heart
11 – The Andrews Sisters - Rum & Coca Cola
12 – Georgia Gibbs - Kiss Of Fire
13 – The Clebanoff Strings - Solamente Una Ves
Credits:
Producer – Rod McKuen
Barcode and Other Identifiers
Barcode: 018111281027
Label: LaserLight Digital – 12 810
Series: The Love Handle Lounge In Hi-Fi –
Format: CD, Compilation
Country: US
Released: 1996
Genre: Jazz, Latin, Pop
Style: Bossa Nova, Bossanova, Cha-Cha, Easy Listening, Mambo, Samba, Space-Age, Vocal, Ballad, Latin Jazz
Viewfinder links:
Styrous® ~ December 30, 2020
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