Corazones and Canciones

Confidently stating Mexican-American music's place within the American Roots tradition, singer La Marisoul has joined with Tejano conjunto Los Texmaniacs for their first collaboration on Smithsonian Folkways, Corazones and Canciones (Hearts and Songs). The album is an enormously proud celebration of Mexican-American music, practically overflowing with energy and emotion with its impassioned vocals and driving polka rhythms, and embellished with the unmistakable howling cries so distinctive of northern Mexican music. Sharply arranged and delivered, the album contains a generous 15 covers, all classics from the Mexican-American songbook chosen for both their raw emotional power and generational significance – ‘Las Nubes (The Clouds)’, for example, was an anthem of the Chicano civil-rights movement. On ‘Hermoso Cariño (Beautiful Love)’, La Marisoul and her conjunto's vocal harmonies roar above a racing Tejano beat, while accordions energetically whizz across ‘Before the Next Teardrop Falls’, a piece whose lyrics code-switch between English and Spanish. The standout track though is ‘Mucho Corazón (A Lot of Heart)’, a sweet bolero in which warm guitar chords softly patter beneath an exposed and heartfelt vocal duet brimming with romantic energy.

It's an album filled with history, harmonies and plenty of corazón.