Malo -- Suavecito (1972)

Why did Carlos Santana become the five-decade legend and Latin Rock pioneer, while his brother Jorge's band just squeak out this one marvelous classic?

Was Carlos' material that much more superior? Was the marketplace only taking one Santana at a time?



In the magical early 70's, when artists were not manufactured from reality TV shows, MTV didn't exist and FM radio was not the playground of consultants and publicly-traded corporations, could a song like this make the Top 40. Looking back, there were so many songs that you could consider flukes, both good and bad, but they became hot numbers because the radio business was different and the public was still absorbing an art form in its early years.

I am not familiar with any of Malo's other material other than "Suavecito" and there's not much rock to it, but plenty of "Latin." We're talking about a mambo, for God's sake, that topped the Billboard chart in 1972! There were no high-up-the-fretboard guitar antics, but tons of guiros, timbales, bongos, congas and shakers. Oh, and that joyful Latin trumpet like a Mongo Santamaria workout.

"Suavecito" was a mid-tempo romantic song, a really out of this world swooner.

Never, I never meet a girl like you in my life
I never, no, no, yeah
I never meet a girl like you in my life

The way that you hold me in the night
The way that you make things go right
Whenever you're in my arms
Girl, you're filling me with all your charms

Suavecito, mi Linda
Suavecito
The feelin' I have inside for you
Suavecito, mi Linda
Suavecito

The feelin', the feelin' that I have inside for you
'Cause ever since the day I met you
I knew you that you were my dream come true
But I think I've found that day
Gonna make you mine in every way

The group-sung "la-la-laaa-la-la-la" hook that is heard throughout "Suavecito" was lifted by Sugar Ray for their 1999 "Every Morning" hit. I once pointed that out to my former staff, since they had never heard of "Suavecito" but they certainly knew the Santana surname.

Enjoy these two clips of "Suavecito" -- 1) a live 1972 performance from the TV show "Rollin'" which shows what a large band Malo was... note the host's mispronunciation of Jorge's name... you may think that's Jorge Santana singing the song up front with his timbales, but that's song composer Richard Bean (Santana was a guitarist), and 2) a homemade video of the full 6-minute version of the song.

The Bells -- "Stay Awhile" (1971)

Once a year, an early 70's piece of fluff comes on the radio that causes such personal revulsion and such disbelief in its inanity, that I will actually listen to the whole thing in very much the way people check out car crashes on the side of the highway. It's a rarely-played song that happened to play this morning over XM Radio's 70's channel on my drive to the train station. I had to remind myself that this song actually was a hit.

And that song is The Bells' "Stay Awhile."

This is not one of those things that is "so bad, it's good." It's just bad.

"Stay Awhile" was one of the bigger soft rock horndog hits at the time, a duet of a girl and a boy having the most sensitive caring sex of their lives. Sylvia's "Pillow Talk" was probably even steamier," but it at least had slightly more redeeming value (just slightly).

When "Stay Awhile" comes on, you feel like you should be lighting scented candles, hanging posters of kittens and sunsets on the walls, and popping the bottle of wine you've been hiding in the fridge. It's all soft acoustic guitar arpeggios, piano chords, fizzy cymbal rolls, finger chimes, and light drums with a rimshot keeping the beat. As a matter of fact, the volume level of the whole song is defiantly low, like it was made to be played when seducing the chick in the dorm room next door.

The girl starts first, whispering in the most come hither voice made for phone porn you've heard on a song, and you're half expecting her to break into a giggle. Every syllable is clearly enunciated and the ending "s" is held slightly for effect (notably on "creeps" and "peeps").

Into my room he creeps,
Without making a sound.
Into my dreams he peeps,
With his hair all long and hanging down

How he makes me quiver,
How he makes me smile.
With all this love I have to give him,
I guess I'm gonna stay with him awhile.


Then it's the boy's turn and this was nothing macho about this. He sings just as softly, describing the babe that just entered his bedroom with nerve-wracking anticipation.

She brushes the curls from my eyes,
She drops her robe on the floor.
And she reaches for the light on the bureau.
And the darkness is her pillow once more.

How she makes me quiver,
How she makes me smile.
With all this love I have to give her,
I guess I'm gonna stay with her awhile.


Then there's the harmonica solo.

The couple sing the chorus a few more times together, it slows down and the girl sighs and whispers "I guess I'm gonna stay" just as the final chord fades.

You can throw up now.

The Thompson Twins -- "The Gap" (1984)

One of the more commercially successful artists of the New Wave era, the Thompson Twins were at the right place and the right time: off-kilter band name (named after characters in the Tintin cartoon), bi-racial personnel, funky feathered hair, a push to the dance floor, and a tremendous knack for writing great pop songs.

At the time, which Sirius Satellite Radio now likes to call "the first wave of alternative music," if you could combine commercial instincts with an eccentric twist and a dance beat, you had a damn good chance to succeed.

The Thompson Twins' sound was based on two strong elements: analog synths, and lots and lots of percussion -- not just drums, but hand percussion of all kinds, which added an international flavor. They worked with producer Alex Sadkin down at Compass Point Studios in the Bahamas, home to other beat-heavy artists like Duran Duran, Grace Jones, and Robert Palmer.

While Arista Records had momentary success with their other New Wave act, Haircut 100, the Thompson Twins had several worldwide hits, spawning all kinds of 12" singles, and a few greatest hits albums. The threesome came right from central casting: a good looking white guy with a droning voice (Tom Bailey), a curly blonde woman who often dressed in downtown fashion and a big cap (Allanah Currie) banging away on electronic drums, and a black bass player/percussionist who, for some reason, didn't seem to say much at all (Joe Leeway). Not surprisingly, Leeway left the band not long after they peaked with this Into The Gap album.

While "The Gap" was not as monsterous a hit as either "Doctor! Doctor!" or "Hold Me Now," but it held special meaning in the summer of 1986 when I was helping run a house in Fire Island. Rampant socializing and togetherness in a house dubbed "Obsession" across from Flynn's dockside bar and restaurant in the Ocean Bay Park section, the residents took this song as a kind of theme song. Every weekend night, you could find them on top of couches, tables and ledges, often with weird hats and cheesy fake plastic guitars, turning "Into The Gap" in a ritualistic dance, much like the way everybody knows how to do the Hokey Pokey, Electric Slide and Chicken Dance (not that I endorse those last obnoxious two).

With an Egyptian synth motif, syncopated hand claps, a convenient slave ship "uhhh," a gated vocoder riff opening on the beat ("I-I-I-I!"), jingles, jangles, bongos, tambourine shakes, and middle Eastern exotica, I can vividly picture this sunburned group of boyfriend and girlfriend hunter singing along:


East is east (four claps), west is west (four claps),
Two diff'rent colors on the map.
We say break the line (four claps), chew the fat (four claps),
Keep moving out into the gap!


Other than those fond memories, that's pretty much all the Thompson Twins are also these days, unfortunately.

Below, the Thompson Twins open a 1985 San Diego concert with "Into The Gap." As you can see, the guys were huge and had a really fun stage show. Makes you wish you could have been there.