Selena - Bidi Bidi Bom Bom. Explanation of Tex-Mex/Tejano and the instruments involved. Cajun Song : "L'anse aux pailles" Most important Instruments. PEREZ PRADO - QUE RICO MAMBO. 6 Cuban Dances (Cervantes, Ignacio) Timba | Cuban Music Home. La Vida Es Un Carnaval - Celia Cruz. Explanation of Salsa music and the instruments used. My Boy Lollipop - Millie Small | Song Info. A History of Reggae Music. Jamaica: the mento TM, ®, Copyright © 2003 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. (See Background: The 20th Century) The first Jamaican recording studio opened in 1951 and recorded "mento" music, a fusion of European and African folk dance music.
The island was awash in rhythm'n'blues records imported by the so called "sound systems", eccentric traveling dance-halls run by no less eccentric disc-jockeys such as Clement Dodd (the "Downbeat") and Duke Reid (the "Trojan"). The poor people of the Jamaican ghettos, who could not afford to hire a band for their parties, had to content themselves with these "sound systems". The "selectors", the Jamaican disc-jockeys who operated those sound systems, became the real entertainers.
The selector would spin the records and would "toast" over them. In 1954 Ken Khouri started Jamaica's first record label, "Federal Records". Soon the bass became the dominant instrument, and the sound evolved into the "ska". Ska (See The Age of Revivals) Reggae Dub Talk-over. A lot about Native American music. Manantial - Rain Dance.