Mento Buru from East Bakersfield, California has played around California's Central Valley since the early 1990s. Bandleader Matt Munoz explains how they, like many bands, have made a living and endured as a regional act.
Last Christmas, Mento Buru released the East Bakersfield Christmas EP, which features Christmas classics adapted to suit the band's Latin ska sound. Munoz talks about how and why they made it, along with the two Spanish-language Christmas songs--"Donde Esta Santa Claus" by Augie Rios, and "Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano. We discussed his fascination with Augie Rios in an earlier episode, but this time we talk about where he found the Spanish lyrics for the song that was written in English.
Along the way, Munoz shares some of his holiday favorites, including songs by the Ramsey Lewis Trio, Cheech and Chong, and Alexander O'Neal.
This week's episode also pays some attention to Earth, Wind & Fire's 2014 Christmas album, Holiday, and the 2015 Sony Legacy repackaging of it with a few extra tracks as The Classic Christmas Album. I'm fascinated by it because the band doesn't simply lend its grooves to Christmas favorites. On a number of the tracks, it either adds seasonal lyrics to pre-existing EWF songs, or it reuses familiar horn flourishes and signature parts to make their versions explicitly theirs.
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"Joyeux Noël, Bon Chrismeusse" from Lafayette with Chas Justus
Peggy Lee with Holly Foster-Wells
Amy Grant's "A Christmas Album" and Patrick Droney
"Do They Know It's Christmas" with Michaelangelo Matos and Flaming Lips' Steven Drozd
George Winston, The Bird and The Bee, The Myrrhderers, and Mento Buru
Calexico, Grant-Lee Phillips, and Peggy Lee
Big Freedia and Kelly Finnigan
Judith Owen and Harry Shearer, and Office Romance
Jim Brickman and the Return of Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Steven Drozd of The Flaming Lips
"Just Like Christmas" with Low
The Goo Goo Dolls and Tori Kelly
"Mele Kalikimaka" with Ana Cristina Cash
Janie Fricke
The Beatles' Christmas Recordings with Jonathan and Julia Pretus of "Ranking the Beatles"
Rhonda Vincent, and Carrie Underwood's "The Gift"
Mega Ran
Christmas Music on the Billboard Charts with Chris Molanphy
"A Jazzy Little Christmas" with Ernie Haase and Signature Sound
"Hard Candy Christmas," with Alexandra Scott
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