Soul Strut 100: # 29 - Ray Barretto - Acid
RAJ
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I will slowly be unveiling the Top 100 Soul Strut Related Records as Voted by the Strutters Themselves.
# 29 - Ray Barretto - Acid
The list so far:
# 100 - Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds
# 99 - Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul
# 98 - Donny Hathaway - S/T (1971)
# 97 - Bernard Wright - ???Nard
# 96 - Tom Scott - Honeysuckle Breeze
# 95 - People Under the Stairs - Question in the Form of an Answer
# 94 - Harlem River Drive
# 93 - Black Moon - Enta Da Stage
# 92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
# 91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
# 90 - Les McCann - Layers
# 89 - Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
# 88 - Leroy Hutson - Hutson (1975)
# 87 - ESG - S/T (1981)
# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
# 85 - Bohannon - Stop & Go
# 84 - WILLIAM DEVAUGHN - Be Thankful For What You Got
# 83 - Power of Zeus - The Gospel According to Zeus
# 82 - Gang Starr - Hard To Earn
# 81 - The J.B.???s - Doing It to Death
# 80 - Parliament - Osmium
# 79 - McNeal & Niles - Thrust
# 78 - The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - Malik
# 77 - Earth, Wind, and Fire (1971)
# 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic
# 75 - Black Sabbath (1970)
# 74 - Trap Door / An International Psychedelic Mystery Mix (2006)
# 73 - Bob James - One
# 72 - Matthew Larkin Cassell - Pieces
# 71 - The Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
# 70 - Big Bear - Doin??? Thangs
# 69 - Steely Dan - Aja
# 68 - Quasimoto - The Unseen
# 67 - Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live! (1971)
# 66 - Al Green - Im still in love with you
# 65 - The Beatnuts - Street Level
# 64 - Archie Whitewater - Archie Whitewater (1970)
# 63 - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - Mecca & the Soul Brother
# 62 - Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
# 61 - The J.B.???s - Food For Thought
# 60 - Don Blackman (1982)
# 59 - Niagara - (Tiddies)
# 58 - Can - Ege Bamyasi
# 57 - Whatnauts - On the Rocks
# 56 - The Mohawks - Champ
# 55 - McDonald and Giles (1971)
# 54 - Darondo - Let My People Go
# 53 - Dorothy Ashby - Afro Harping
# 52 - Beastie Boys - Paul???s Boutique
# 51 - Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu of Ethiopia
# 50 - Lyman Woodard Organization - Saturday Night Special
# 49 - Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul
# 48 - Lyn Collins - Think (About It)
# 47 - James Brown - In The Jungle Groove
# 46 - Bill Withers - Still Bill
# 45 - Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
# 44 - Silver Apples - S/T
# 43 - Mobb Deep - The Infamous
# 42 - Lyn Christopher (1973)
# 41 - Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson
# 40 - Gang Starr - Step in the Arena
# 39 - Diamond D - Stunts, Blunts, & Hip Hop
# 38 - Terry Callier - What Color is Love
# 37 - David Axelrod - Song of Innocence
# 36 - The Invaders - Spacing Out
# 35 - Leo Sayer - Endless Flight
# 34 - Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
# 33 - DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist - Brainfreeze (Mix)
# 32 - Michael Jackson - Thriller
# 31 - DJ Shadow - Endtroducing
# 30 - De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
About
By the time 1968 rolled around, Ray Barretto was a celebrated studio session player whose hard-driving conga rhythms could be heard all over the records of Dizzy Gillespie, Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, and countless others. Once he dropped Acid onto the music world, Barretto firmly established a reputation for himself as an innovator in his own right.
Like the drug itself, Acid had a mind-expanding influence on everyone, allowing for a far more adventurous and eclectic edge to slip into New York's Latin music scene. A lot less psychedelic than its title and cover might lead you to believe, Acid remains one of the most far-out fusions of Latin and soul music ever conceived.
Catchy as hell, the records four original Latin/soul numbers ("Mercy, Mercy Baby", "The Soul Drummers", "A Deeper Shade of Soul" and "Teacher of Love") are obscure classics loaded with plenty of vintage '60s soul references???punchy James Brown and Stax Records sounding horns, thickly grooving bass lines, fat-back drums, and clich?? soul catch-phrases such as "What I say," "Lord have mercy," "Come on, come on baby" and "Sock it to me!"
El Nuevo Barretto (The New Barretto)" opens the album on familiar ground, with its high-energy boogaloo-styled salsa sung passionately in Spanish. With the second track, "Mercy, Mercy Baby," the sound shifts dramatically as soul gets a serious drenching in hot sauce. The band chants "Mercy, Mercy Baby" behind Memphis-styled horns, catchy lyrics, timbales, and Barretto's kicking congas. The title track, "Acid," opens up sparsely with a lazy hypnotic bass and percussion groove over which stretches the muted trumpet sounds of Rene Lopez (who was soon to be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam). After a rock-steady timbales solo by Orestes Vilato, the band begins calling out "Barretto, Barretto," and master Ray steps forward, obliging them with one of his most fiery and intense conga solos ever. The lyrics on "The Soul Drummers" totally sums up the record: "Have you heard them cooking / The Soul Drummers / well they play so cool / Soul Drummers / so hard to resist / Soul Drummers / with the African twist."
The album's most psychedelic soul sounds can be heard on its closing track, the appropriately titled "Espiritu Libre (Free Spirit)." This instrumental opens with some pretty far out-there trumpet statements that sound as if they could've come straight off of Bitches Brew???pretty advanced stuff for a 1968 Latin record! The track builds into a full blown drum-heated jam flavored with odd rhythmic time-signatures, passionate brass, and feverish bass lines, bringing the album to a satisfying peak that leaves you in bad need of a smoke.
Acid turned on a lot of important players with its irresistible blending of Latin and soul music, significantly helping to bring about the rise of the Afro-Latin funk revolution.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=771#.UTn1k6UaB8w
Related Threads
Ray Barretto - R.I.P.
DO YOU GUYS EVEN BUY RECORDS? (record strut rel.)
Ray Barretto ???Acid??? gatefold OG
TOP 5 FANIA
Media
# 29 - Ray Barretto - Acid
The list so far:
# 100 - Jr. and His Soulettes - Psychodelic Sounds
# 99 - Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul
# 98 - Donny Hathaway - S/T (1971)
# 97 - Bernard Wright - ???Nard
# 96 - Tom Scott - Honeysuckle Breeze
# 95 - People Under the Stairs - Question in the Form of an Answer
# 94 - Harlem River Drive
# 93 - Black Moon - Enta Da Stage
# 92 - Marvin Gaye - Here, My Dear
# 91 - Muddy Waters - Electric Mud
# 90 - Les McCann - Layers
# 89 - Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
# 88 - Leroy Hutson - Hutson (1975)
# 87 - ESG - S/T (1981)
# 86 - Can - Tago Mago
# 85 - Bohannon - Stop & Go
# 84 - WILLIAM DEVAUGHN - Be Thankful For What You Got
# 83 - Power of Zeus - The Gospel According to Zeus
# 82 - Gang Starr - Hard To Earn
# 81 - The J.B.???s - Doing It to Death
# 80 - Parliament - Osmium
# 79 - McNeal & Niles - Thrust
# 78 - The Lafayette Afro Rock Band - Malik
# 77 - Earth, Wind, and Fire (1971)
# 76 - Dr. Dre - The Chronic
# 75 - Black Sabbath (1970)
# 74 - Trap Door / An International Psychedelic Mystery Mix (2006)
# 73 - Bob James - One
# 72 - Matthew Larkin Cassell - Pieces
# 71 - The Beginning Of The End - Funky Nassau
# 70 - Big Bear - Doin??? Thangs
# 69 - Steely Dan - Aja
# 68 - Quasimoto - The Unseen
# 67 - Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live! (1971)
# 66 - Al Green - Im still in love with you
# 65 - The Beatnuts - Street Level
# 64 - Archie Whitewater - Archie Whitewater (1970)
# 63 - Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth - Mecca & the Soul Brother
# 62 - Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
# 61 - The J.B.???s - Food For Thought
# 60 - Don Blackman (1982)
# 59 - Niagara - (Tiddies)
# 58 - Can - Ege Bamyasi
# 57 - Whatnauts - On the Rocks
# 56 - The Mohawks - Champ
# 55 - McDonald and Giles (1971)
# 54 - Darondo - Let My People Go
# 53 - Dorothy Ashby - Afro Harping
# 52 - Beastie Boys - Paul???s Boutique
# 51 - Mulatu Astatke - Mulatu of Ethiopia
# 50 - Lyman Woodard Organization - Saturday Night Special
# 49 - Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul
# 48 - Lyn Collins - Think (About It)
# 47 - James Brown - In The Jungle Groove
# 46 - Bill Withers - Still Bill
# 45 - Stevie Wonder - Innervisions
# 44 - Silver Apples - S/T
# 43 - Mobb Deep - The Infamous
# 42 - Lyn Christopher (1973)
# 41 - Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson
# 40 - Gang Starr - Step in the Arena
# 39 - Diamond D - Stunts, Blunts, & Hip Hop
# 38 - Terry Callier - What Color is Love
# 37 - David Axelrod - Song of Innocence
# 36 - The Invaders - Spacing Out
# 35 - Leo Sayer - Endless Flight
# 34 - Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
# 33 - DJ Shadow & Cut Chemist - Brainfreeze (Mix)
# 32 - Michael Jackson - Thriller
# 31 - DJ Shadow - Endtroducing
# 30 - De La Soul - 3 Feet High and Rising
Please discuss your reactions to this record. The thread will be archived later here.
About
By the time 1968 rolled around, Ray Barretto was a celebrated studio session player whose hard-driving conga rhythms could be heard all over the records of Dizzy Gillespie, Cal Tjader, Cannonball Adderley, and countless others. Once he dropped Acid onto the music world, Barretto firmly established a reputation for himself as an innovator in his own right.
Like the drug itself, Acid had a mind-expanding influence on everyone, allowing for a far more adventurous and eclectic edge to slip into New York's Latin music scene. A lot less psychedelic than its title and cover might lead you to believe, Acid remains one of the most far-out fusions of Latin and soul music ever conceived.
Catchy as hell, the records four original Latin/soul numbers ("Mercy, Mercy Baby", "The Soul Drummers", "A Deeper Shade of Soul" and "Teacher of Love") are obscure classics loaded with plenty of vintage '60s soul references???punchy James Brown and Stax Records sounding horns, thickly grooving bass lines, fat-back drums, and clich?? soul catch-phrases such as "What I say," "Lord have mercy," "Come on, come on baby" and "Sock it to me!"
El Nuevo Barretto (The New Barretto)" opens the album on familiar ground, with its high-energy boogaloo-styled salsa sung passionately in Spanish. With the second track, "Mercy, Mercy Baby," the sound shifts dramatically as soul gets a serious drenching in hot sauce. The band chants "Mercy, Mercy Baby" behind Memphis-styled horns, catchy lyrics, timbales, and Barretto's kicking congas. The title track, "Acid," opens up sparsely with a lazy hypnotic bass and percussion groove over which stretches the muted trumpet sounds of Rene Lopez (who was soon to be drafted and shipped off to Vietnam). After a rock-steady timbales solo by Orestes Vilato, the band begins calling out "Barretto, Barretto," and master Ray steps forward, obliging them with one of his most fiery and intense conga solos ever. The lyrics on "The Soul Drummers" totally sums up the record: "Have you heard them cooking / The Soul Drummers / well they play so cool / Soul Drummers / so hard to resist / Soul Drummers / with the African twist."
The album's most psychedelic soul sounds can be heard on its closing track, the appropriately titled "Espiritu Libre (Free Spirit)." This instrumental opens with some pretty far out-there trumpet statements that sound as if they could've come straight off of Bitches Brew???pretty advanced stuff for a 1968 Latin record! The track builds into a full blown drum-heated jam flavored with odd rhythmic time-signatures, passionate brass, and feverish bass lines, bringing the album to a satisfying peak that leaves you in bad need of a smoke.
Acid turned on a lot of important players with its irresistible blending of Latin and soul music, significantly helping to bring about the rise of the Afro-Latin funk revolution.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=771#.UTn1k6UaB8w
Related Threads
Ray Barretto - R.I.P.
DO YOU GUYS EVEN BUY RECORDS? (record strut rel.)
Ray Barretto ???Acid??? gatefold OG
TOP 5 FANIA
Media
Comments
wouldn't make my top 100 anything, there are so many better latin records from the era. Hell, there are better Barretto records from the era.
This list needs more hate and I am here to provide it.
what barretto album do you rank higher? i rate acid the highested, followed by "power" and "latino con soul"
Johnny, could you recommend some examples? I am an absolute latin noob for sure but I love love love this record. It's great from beginning to end, IMHO. I don't believe Hard Hands is as good.....
Hard Hands
Together
I don't know that I'd rank either one of those higher than Acid. But I'll always rank any Eddie Palmieri higher than Ray Barretto.
Palmieri made some different level stuff, agreed. And Harlem River Drive was somewhere in the 80s or 90s?
I am not a big fan of the boogaloo sound, shit is wilde cheesy to me. But considering how most of this list are kind of desert-isle, genre-defining records this choice seems pretty uninspired. "My First Groovy Latin Record" territory.
To me the imagery of the record and what it represents to your average 35 year old "digger" are way more crucial to its placement than the music
Willie Rosario and his Orchestra featuring Frankie Figuroa "Two Too Much"
Chollo & The Latin Soul Drives "By Chollo"
Joey Pastrana "Let's Ball"
The Lebron Brothers "Brother"
Me??ique Y Kako "Sock It To Me Latino"
maybe I'm just extremely bored with Acid, so there's a novelty factor with some of these.
but I cannot listen to that DEEPER SHADE OF SOUL shit with a straight face.
I actually quite enjoy teh boogaloo/latin soul thing, which is part of why I like Acid so much.
To someone whose only impression of latin music is hearing shitty bachata being blasted out of your Dominican neighbor's car a record like Acid is pretty mind-blowing. Once you parse it out though, there are better boogaloo records, better salsa records, and better latin jazz records out there. But I think it's already been established that's not necessarily the point of this list, and I can see how Acid gets on here as "My First Groovy Latin Record." It's either this or Watermelon Man, right?
also, Deeper Shade of Soul: a case of a sample ruining the original song?
although that's the weakest song on the record.
is there any sort of Fania vs. Discos Fuentes discussion?
I used to have Acid on cd, and it's one of those records where after a very short while I'd look up from whatever I was doing and say, "Damn, this is still on?"
that is like saying "compared to Carly Rae Jepsen coming out of my daughter's iphone this Superfly TNT record sounds amazing"
I was just gonna say. +1 for Reynaldo.
I've seen the results for the SS 100 votes and only like 2 people voted for Acid (see above).
shoulda been number 1 to him!
I'm a massive fan of like 10 boogaloo songs, but most boogaloo is pretty cringe-inducing to me. These are definitely filed, though:
^ pitched down to -6 or 7 this shit is great.
Why on earth would you compare? Mario "Pachanga" Rincon and Antonio Fuentes would frequently travel to NYC and visit Fania and Tico studios to learn recording techniques and hear what the hottest salsa styles were at the time. Then they put their own spin on it.
They brought Fruko's first LP Tesura to NYC and played it for some folks and basically got laughed out of town. It was too obtuse apparently. After that, Rincon and Fruko really created their own unique sound and banged out some mega-classics.
Before the 70s, Fuentes was a completely different animal and had produced an impressive catalog of musica coste??a already, decades before Fania was started.
Edit: Btw, Deeper Shade of Soul is lame.
I was just wondering if people compare the two. I know salsa came out NYC and everything, but in some ways I like the classic Fruko stuff better than anything on Fania when it comes to straight up salsa bangers. Feel free to school me on this though, I'm not claiming to be an expert by any means.
I wouldn't fuck to this record but it still bangs. "Love Beads" and "Together" are basically funk tracks; you can't really compare them to what was on Acid or before. Hards Hands and Together just sound like smaller, looser records. Although "Son Con Cuero" sounds like it was from the Acid sessions. "Hipocresia y Falsedad" is another favorite. They're just very different records.
Not too long ago I sold O-Dub my copy of Acid.
I'll take that. I totally ride for this and think it's one of the best Latin soul albums, period. Of course, if you don't like boogaloo...
I'm not trying to get into an argument over this but as far as "cheesy" boogaloo albums go, this is one of the least cheesy out there. I'm really surprised to hear it described as that but different strokes/folks and all that.
This is a fair point, but Acid is still corny
I was told just today that the sessions for those records were all around the same (damn) time