Pacho Galán / Congo de oro 77-78
Francisco “Pacho” Galán (1906-1988) was a Colombian musician and composer who is principally known as the creator of Merecumbé, a musical style that combines Cumbia and Colombian Merengue (the word Merecumbé is itself a combination its two parent genres). Before I go any further, let’s listen to his most famous song, from the record “Congo de Oro 77-78”. Pacho Galán in an interview:
Here it is again in the mid-century Mexican film, “Maratón de baile.” [Clip from an excellent Spanish-language documentary about Pacho Galán and the Merecumbé.] Here are some other songs on the album: Quiero amanece’ literally means “I want to wake up.” Amanecer in Spanish is both the verb for “wake up” and the noun for “sunrise” or “dawn”. So when the singer says “quiero amanecer cantando/bailando/en la plaza toreando” that effectively means she never really wants to go to sleep. I guess in this case “amanecer” doesn’t really mean “to wake up”, it means “to experience the dawn”. This is a fairly well-known song. Atlántico – the last track on the album. |