Now THAT'S Puerto Rican Music!

We might not care for more tasteful and refined Puerto Rican music, but we do dig us the Puerto Rican steel band music of Pedrito Altieri. For those of you challenged in the joyful exuberation department, there is a lot of helpful shouting and carrying on, to let you know there are high-spirited hijinks of some sort going on. Apparently this is what happy people do in public when they are experiencing something that is socially pleasurable.

Each song is helpfully tagged as merengue, calypso, bolero, rumba, or rock and roll, so you don’t embarrass yourself publicly by doing the wrong dance along to the music. For those keeping score, “Colonel Boogey” is a meringue, and is coincidentally very similar in form and melody to “Colonel Bogey March”, but not nearly as frightening. “Cutuguru” (rumba calypso) is the same song as my perennial favorite Jack Jack Jack from this album. And there’s a rock and roll version of Volare, the poignancy of that noted tune heightened by a bunch of guys begging for tips while whacking some empty oil drums for all they are worth. And did I mention that some of the drums are comically out of tune?

Pedrito Altieri y su Banda de Acero is an album that will be a prized part of your music collection long after your head stops throbbing from the incessant beat of the cowbell. Thonk. Thonk. Thonk.

Pedrito Altieri y su Banda de Acera Puerto Rico Record Manufacturing Co. Inc. LP-62
(possibly distributed by Caribair Airlines)