Rumel Fuentes – Corridos of the Chicano Movement / Arhoolie CD-507

Description

CD 507

Rumel Fuentes was a devoted activist, composer, and singer for the Chicano Movement during the late 1960s and early 1970s. His home was in Eagle Pass, Texas on the Mexican border, and unfortunately his voice and his songs were never heard as widely as those of many others. Many of his corridos (narrative ballads) speak of local injustices and interracial problems in the Rio Grande Valley, while others focus on the broader aims and themes of the Chicano Movement.

Full transcriptions and translations of the songs can be found embedded in the CD, accessible by computer.

1. Yo Soy Tu Hermano
2. Corrido De Cesar Chavez
3. Walk-Out En Crystal City
4. Aztlán
5. Corrido De Reies Lopez Tijerina
6. México-Americano
7. Partida La Raza Unida
8. Huapango Los Trabajos
9. Corrido De Pharr, Texas
10. Política En Los Barrios
11. Corrido De Jorge I. Sanchez
12. Joaquín Murrieta
13. México-Americano -Rumel Accompanied By Los Pingüinos Del Norte

REVIEW

Golden-Voiced Protest Singer and Corrido Craftman

‘To my mother I’m a Mexican, by destiny I’m American / I speak Spanish and English, I’m from the noble golden race.‘ So sang bicultural activist and composer Rumel Fuentes on ‘Mexico Americano,’ his words complemented by serenading guitar, his message underpinned by catchy rhythms and the odd whoop of delight. The sincerity of the common man is rarely heard to better effect than in these Mexican corridos. They map the early years of the Tex-Mex Chicano movement that, from the 1960s, championed the rights of a people whose land and livelihoods have been disrespected and brutally trampled on since way before the Mexican-American war of 1846. Inspired by being born on the border, Fuentes sang in his corridos of being brought up the ninth of eleven children in a family forced to migrate north, to work as farm labourers. The only one to finish school – an itinerant life prevents most kids from completing courses, never mind exams – Fuentes used the age-old corrido form to capture the many struggles of the time. ‘Walk-Out in Crystal City,’ for example, concerns high-school discrimination against Mexican-American students. Fuentes died in 1986 but his songs, and the struggle they embody, live on.

Arhoolie boss Chris Strachwitz, a long-term supporter of Mexican culture, recorded Fuentes back in the 70s. As Fuentes’ wife Jo Zettler recalls in the liner notes, Strachwitz recorded Rumel with two musician friends in the tiny living room of their student flat. That intimacy and immediacy comes across here, powerfully delivered in swinging style with a voice that fuses lamenting, emotional vocals with defiance and humour.

-Jan Fairley, Songlines