Not the Boss of Me: Liber Terán and "Don't Have to Be"

Liber Terán brings us our random song today, an almost ska-like song called Don't Have to Be. Liber Terán is a founding member and former lead singer and guitarist of the Mexican band Los de Abajo, which focused on Latin ska, rock, salsa. reggae, cumbia, Son Jarocho and banda sinaloense. As a solo artist, Terán has expanded his repertoire to explore classic rock and roll and Balkan influences. You can find Don't Have to Be on his 2008 CD El Gitano Western.

Listen to songs like this and more on the KUNM Global Music Show every Monday night from 10 pm - 1 am Mountain Standard Time. Live streaming, program information and the two-week digital archive can be found at http://www.kunm.org.

It Probably Helped: The Specials (The Special AKA) and "Nelson Mandela"

An 80's dance tune by The Specials is our random tune for today. The song Nelson Mandela had political significance, as it called for the South African government to free the political icon who founded the African National Congress. The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, are an English 2-Tone and ska band with political and social themes in their songs and characterized by their mod rude boy outfits. They had 7 consecutive UK Top 10 hits 1979 and 1981, but split up after three original members left the band to form Fun Boy Three. In 1982 remaining members of the band renamed it The Special AKA but the band had numerous lineup changes. In 1993, the original lineup reunited, and the band has come together for various events since then, and even released a live album in 2013 - though a studio album has not been released since 2001. Nelson Mandela can be found on The Specials (The Special AKA)' 1984 release In the Studio. The song is upbeat and draws on South African musical influences, and has been listed by The New Statesman as one of the top 20 political songs ever recorded.

Told You: Liber Terán and "You See"

Liber Terán provides us with our random song for today. You See is a bonus track from his 2008 album El Gitano Western. Liber Terán is a founding member and former lead singer and guitarist of the Mexican band Los de Abajo, which focused on Latin ska, rock, salsa. reggae, cumbia, Son Jarocho and banda sinaloense. As a solo artist, Terán has expanded his repertoire to explore classic rock and roll and Balkan influences.

Not Your Mama's Lounge: Charanga Cakewalk and "Volcanico"

The enduring image of the lounge singer, so immortalized in all its cheesiness by Bill Murray in Saturday Night Live sketches, or even as satirized by Richard Cheese (his lounge version of Baby Got Back has to be one of the best song parodies of all time), has been taking a beating lately. That's because lounge music is cool again.

A lot of this makeover of lounge music has to do with electronic advances in music. Ambient sounds can be utilized very effectively to create a mood, just as in the old days lounge singers tried to create a mood with their vocal stylings and downtempo versions of popular songs put to exotic rhythms, as well as utilizing themselves the sounds available to them. So whereas my mom would have gone to Vegas to see the Rat Pack, Wayne Newton and Louis Prima (who, for the record, I absolutely love), nowadays people listening to lounge can find it incorporating music from all over the world. It's not as if lounge hadn't done that before - Brazilian forms such as samba and bossa nova were part of the lounge landscape in the 50s and 60s - but the availability and knowledge of different styles of music from other areas of the world is much greater in a world so interconnected. And I find that it is within the bounds of world music that lounge has become so interesting.

In this vein, today's artist is Charanga Cakewalk. Charanga Cakewalk is the brainchild of Michael Ramos, a Latino Chicano Mexican who also describes himself as a citizen of the world. A once sideman and rocker who played with John Mellencamp, Paul Simon, Patty Griffin and others and was a sometime member of the BoDeans and The Rembrandts, he maintained a keen interest in the Latino music of his childhood. Ramos has made Charanga Cakewalk the leading proponent of a style called cumbia lounge. Within his musical landscapes, you might hear tejano, flamenco, merengue, salsa, garage rock, ska and reggaeton. Charanga Cakewalk has released three albums. This song, Volcanico, is from the 2005 album Loteria de la Cumbia Lounge.

Reggae from the Torah: Ron Wiseman and "Measure for Measure"

I'm Catholic, and if you know anything about Catholics, you'll know that most of us don't know our Bibles or other Catholic religious texts that well.  Oh, there are exceptions.  A friend we knew in San Antonio when we lived there is Catholic and a biblical scholar.  But when it comes to religious texts, we just don't make them a direct part of our lives.  We go to Mass on Sunday's, listen to the readings, and listen to the priest's interpretation of readings, and then go about our merry ways for another week.  Being a good Catholic was always, to me, more about the actions than the words behind the actions.  I don't want to make it sound like the words and texts aren't important - because they provide a basis for what we do.  Every Catholic knows how to paraphrase Jesus' saying "turn the other cheek," in reference to enemies, or other similar parables and morals, and some of us follow the precepts, especially those that are modeled by our parents and other people we respect.  But it is rare for me to find a Catholic that really delves into the text to gain a greater meaning from the words and context.

Which is why people who really get into the texts fascinate me.  If you are Muslim or Jewish, you probably can quote whole passages of the Koran or the Torah by heart.  Part of the rite of passage for a young Jewish boy (and I'm assuming girl though I may be wrong about that) is to recite a long passage of the holy text from memory at the bar- or bat-mitzvah.  And it is even more fascinating to me when people gain mystical experiences from the text, when the text so moves them that they absorb it into their lives and make it a focal point around which life moves.  For me, in Mass, often I'm thinking something else rather than truly listening to the text, and therefore the text becomes a quiet drone in the background of my thoughts, with the occasional sentence or phrase popping through.  So I appreciate, and am even envious, of those that can really find meaning from the religious texts rather than doing some kind of obligatory half attention to them.

That is what happened to our featured artist today, Ron Wiseman.  Born and raised in Winnipeg, Canada and exposed in his childhood to such types of music as rock, r&b and blues, he began playing blues piano as a child.  He worked with some bands as a young adult, and diversified his playing to rockabilly, country and r&b.  he was living in Toronto when he took a vacation to Israel.  While traveling in the hills of Judea, he had a mystical experience which led him to create music that he called Spiritual (or Conscious) Reggae based on the words of the Torah and other Jewish religious texts.  He came back to Canada, began putting songs together and playing them in his club gigs.  The result was a mixture of reggae, ska, rock and blues and which earned him the unofficial title of "the king of Jewish reggae."  His website says that he interprets sacred texts through the eyes of a musician who has experienced love and suffered loss.  He has shared the stage with Kinky Friedman, recorded in Jamaica with Sugar Minott and has built a following of fans from many backgrounds, religions, and ethnicities.  He is currently a resident of Tel Aviv, Israel.  This song, Measure for Measure, is off his 2005 release Mystical Mood.