Merengue....???

batmon

Where to start?
Artists?
Vinyl History?

Im pretty sure most of the Latin collectros are usually doin Salsa, but what about Merengue?

Is it out in the field? Undiscovered Genre? Mostly CD?

Is there a "Golden Age" like NYC Salsa?

Stories pleez.

bobtheorange

batmon said:

Is it out in the field?

yes, cheap too. but I can't really recommend anything since I'm not really into to the genre.

mannybolone

So necessary if you're spinning to a heavy Latin crowd but I'm ignorant too.

willie_fugal

PATX

willie fugal is right. a good place to start is Wilfrido Vargas for modern sound maybe. But not El Baile del perro.



Also Joseito Mateo, Los Hijos del Rey, Johnny Ventura who also does a good que se sepa.






And if you like rootsy, Tatico is the shit

bobtheorange

you find this dude's records all the time in Puerto Rico :

don't remember how they sound though.

batmon

mannybolone said:

So necessary if you're spinning to a heavy Latin crowd but I'm ignorant too.

Sayin.......why is that? Not on you O, but overall?

Is there no "romantic" era ala Salsa? No household name superstar?

New to America factor? Outside of NYC regional underexposure?

I recall workin security at Bronx Comm College and during the dances, the Latin music was 65/35 Salsa to Merengue. This was the early-mid 90's.

PATX

Pura Dominicana (60 mins of Salsa and Merengue from DR)

Reynaldo

I like the stuff that's not too fast and too light.

Louie Ramirez "El Merengue De Don Luis"
Rafael Labasta "San Antonio"
Joe Cuba "Mad Merengue"

utters

dancing merengue dog is literally all you need

pcmr

batmon said:

mannybolone said:

So necessary if you're spinning to a heavy Latin crowd but I'm ignorant too.

Sayin.......why is that? Not on you O, but overall?

Is there no "romantic" era ala Salsa? No household name superstar?

New to America factor? Outside of NYC regional underexposure?

I recall workin security at Bronx Comm College and during the dances, the Latin music was 65/35 Salsa to Merengue. This was the early-mid 90's.

there is a romantic era but its not cheesy lyrics and bad synth its just really fast and repetitive low quality late 80's merengue and that sound is what is reproduced today
you need it because that's what gets them dancing on the floor
the older stuff i like
johnny ventura has some great tracks that made me reconsider my opinion of merengue
you will be able to find a lot in the field

Garcia_Vega

Merengue's "golden era" was the 80s. Its also mainly Dominican, and hardly anybody was pressing records in DR then, its a tape/cd genre.

PATX

Garcia_Vega said:

Merengue's "golden era" was the 80s. Its also mainly Dominican, and hardly anybody was pressing records in DR then, its a tape/cd genre.

If you just are talking about bootleg CDs on blankets for mass consumption, then you can say the same for Salsa and Cumbia.

In the 60s Merengue took over from Mambo as the dominant big band sound, before Salsa. None of that is from DR and it's [strike]tepid[/strike] buttoned-down enough for Rey to file ;) But we are talking about stuff that females will dance to.

I would compare Merengue to Haitian Compa when it comes to looking for the vinyl. 90% of it is booted tape/CDs, but the stuff you would really want is out there on vinyl somewhere. And avoid covers with shiny shirts and perms.

pcmr

SportCasual said:

I would compare Merengue to Haitian Compa when it comes to looking for the vinyl. 90% of it is booted tape/CDs, but the stuff you would really want is out there on vinyl somewhere. And avoid covers with shiny shirts and perms.

VERDAD

Garcia_Vega

SportCasual said:

Garcia_Vega said:

Merengue's "golden era" was the 80s. Its also mainly Dominican, and hardly anybody was pressing records in DR then, its a tape/cd genre.

If you just are talking about bootleg CDs on blankets for mass consumption, then you can say the same for Salsa and Cumbia.

In the 60s Merengue took over from Mambo as the dominant big band sound, before Salsa. None of that is from DR

I don't know about all of that, where are you getting this info from? For sure there was merengue in the 60s and it was getting play in NY, but taking over from mambo?! And none of it is from DR?! Wilfredo Vargas and Johnny Ventura, arguably the biggest names in the genre at the time, are both Dominican.

PATX

I guess outside of NY was different. Big band Merengue was huge in Colombia and Venezuela after Mambo was out of fashion but before salsa had been 'invented'. The bands in the clubs would play that shit all night and it was easier to dance to than Cha Cha/Mambo so it was very popular. By the mid 60s In NYC they were probably doing the boogaloo instead.

Yeah Johnny Ventura was a big star but he was liked for all styles, not just merengue. When I say DR merengue, I mean LPs with 9+ balls out Merengues on and 5 dudes in jumpsuits on the cover. You know what I mean. I think that's the stuff that batmon and Odub started discussing above.

Garcia_Vega

Oh, I see, yeah I thought you were talking about NY strictly. Although people here also played a variety of styles in the clubs, for sure merengue was getting played, but not as prominent, and definitely not getting recorded much. We'll have to ask some old timers about merengues reception here during that time. There must be some reason a Dominican as prominent as Johnny Pacheco went the salsa route instead of the merengue route.

PATX

I think maybe it just wasn't seen as being very sophisticated by the young cats? Add to that the ambivalent relations between PR and DR people and you could see how NYC would be quite different from South America where the music arrived without the heavy cultural identity attached. And when Merengue did overtake Salsa in NY in the late 70s, it was probably due to a more recent wave of immigration from DR, who were probably not city folks and did not grow up listening to the big NY names of the 60s.

batmon

Is it me or Merengue is limted in its tempo?

I never heard slow Merengue. Not sayin it needs variants but just stating.

Garcia_Vega

Yeah merengue is always 2/4, no variation.

SC, I don't know if people in the city thought merengue was unsophisticated per se (boogaloo sure was seen that way and they played the shit out of it), but salsa was just a much more natural progression from mambo, cha cha cha, son, guaguanco, etc that its roots were already leading in that direction anyway. This is all speculation on my part though. Lord knows Puerto Ricans love them some merengue (present company excluded).

Dean R

Pacheco moved to NYC in 1946 at the age of 11. His whole musical world was based on what was going on in NY at the time. Hence he played Cuban based musics, rather than Dominican ones.

PATX

So he was passin?