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