Search - Antobal's Cubans :: 1932-1937

Great old music, marred by iffy cultural politics

Joe Sixpack -- Slipcue.com | ...in Middle America | 06/12/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Don Antobal was the brother of famed bandleader Don Azpiazu, whose contemporary work included the huge, breakthrough hit, "El Manisero" aka "The Peanut Vendor." He followed his brother into the music business, fronting another highly successful dance orchestra during the Depression years. Working with him over the years was wife, Marion Sunshine, a vaudeville performer who moved into Latin dance material and helped translate Azpiazu's smash hit, "El Manisero" ("The Peanut Vendor") in 1931, and who went on to compose or translate numerous other hits in years to come. Her work here ranges from cute novelty tunes such as "La Mulata Rumbera (sung here by the great bolero singer, Antonio Machin) and "The Moon Over Cuba Was High (And So Was I)" to more questionable ethnic humor such as "Hot Tamales" and "They All Look Alike To Pancho." There's other racist material on here as well, most of which is charming and some of which, like "Spic And Spanish," is a reprehensible relic of an era long gone. One odd, interesting side note to all this is that about half the tracks on here feature vocals by popular singer Chick Bullock, performing under the paper-thin pseudonym, Chiquito Bullo, in sort of the Latin American equivalent of blackface minstrel shows. Antobal certainly wasn't alone in trafficking in "manana" stereotypes, but this disc does seem to have a higher proportion of this kind of tune that most... One can find all the stereotypes and bad puns either as simply offensive, or as noteworthy traces of an older, earlier showbusiness era. The music itself, though, is top-notch, and is what redeems these old, historical recordings."