Los Socios Del Ritmo: Frijol Con Puerco
From S/T (EMI, 1971)
Los Lazos: La Rola
From Como Has Hecho (Orfeon, 1970)
I’m not saying, “if you see a record by a Mexican band from the early 1970s where the band members are standing next to or leaning against a wood paneled wall, you should definitely pick it up.”But really, what do you have to lose?
Just be forewarned – with both these LPs, the two tracks I highlight are the outliers. True, the Los Lazos LP does have a very loyal cover of Booker T’s “Time Is Tight”…but I found it rather tepid. And definitely on the Los Socios Del Ritmo album, there is nothing that even approaches “Frijol Con Puerco.” Clearly, neither LP was meant to pitch itself to a soul/funk crowd (no matter what their outfits say) though our friends at Super Sonido suggest that you’d expect a Yucatán group like Los Socios Del Ritmo to get down on it.
Of the two, “Frijol Con Puerco” is short and snappy – a slick, mambo-meets-mod cut. Even though it was likely recorded after Los Lazos’s LP, it sounds about 4-5 years earlier (stylistically). “La Rola,” though…whew, that’s a bit of revelation to me: a jazzy, soulful swirl of a fusion track. Excepcional…
Ok, Pork ang Beans just blew my mind…I was not hip to the Yucatan funk. Interesting fusion there