Chalino Sánchez • Alma Enamorada Discos Musart/Craft Recordings CR000787
Chalino Sánchez’s short, 32-year life was peppered with drama, violence and misfortune. Raised in a violent rural area of Sinaloa in northwest Mexico, he lost his father at age five. Nine years later, in September of 1975, he shot and killed a man who had raped his sister. After a brief stint as a “coyote” in Tijuana, he moved to the United States in October of 1975 to elude Mexican authorities, eventually ending up living with his aunt in Englewood, California. While stateside, he managed to survive by engaging in a variety of jobs both legitimate and not. In 1984, his brother was shot and killed in Tijuana, an event that inspired Chalino to compose his first corrido (ballad) “Recordando A Armando Sánchez.” That same year, he married Marisela Vallejos, whom he had met a year earlier through a cousin. Chalino and Marisela raised two children and remained married up until his death in 1992. Toward the end of the 1980s, Sánchez was selling his music, on cassette tape format only, out of the trunk of his car and at bakeries, butcher shops and local flea markets. In fact, during his lifetime, Chalino Sánchez only sold his music on cassettes -- never on CDs or LPs. The end of the decade saw Chalino Sánchez grow in popularity throughout Southern California. In 1992, there was an attempt on his life at a club in Coachella, California, where an audience of 400 people gathered to hear him sing. Both Sánchez and the would-be shooter escaped death, but the shootout left a 20-year-old spectator dead and ten people injured. Subsequent to this event, Sánchez sold the rights to his songs to Musart Records, the same label that released the Beatles records in Mexico prior to Capitol Records, whose colorful label adorns both sides of this LP. Musart was acquired by Concord Bicycle Music in 2016 and in 2017 became part of Concord Music Group. Once again, as he did on his album Nieves de Enero, Chalino Sánchez, known posthumously as El Rey del Corrido (King of the Corrido), urges you to take to the dance floor, as the title tune, “Alma Enamorada” (“Soul In Love”), a waltz, opens with blissful accordion courtesy of Ignacio "Nacho" Hernández, leader of the group Los Amables del Norte, which provides energetic backup. (In a bizarre historical note, Chalino was found murdered a day after singing this song for the crowd at his favorite club, Salón Bugambilias in Culiacán, at which he received a death threat, by written note, from someone in the audience. His receiving the note, crumbling it up, wiping his brow before breaking into song, was captured on video and has gone viral online.) Of Alma Enamorada’s 15 songs, a handful of which Sánchez wrote, only one is not a waltz. In addition to the more traditional style of corrido dealing with history, daily life, love and betrayal, Sánchez embraced the variety known as narco-corridos, which focused on (and romanticized) tales, real or imagined, of events and personalities associated with drug trafficking -- many examples of which can be heard on this album. Even though I could not understand one word of the
Spanish lyrics, I sat on my sofa grinning from ear to ear at the energy and joie de
vivre expressed in the music pouring from my speakers. Social, moral or political
considerations be damned, these waltzes and polkas demand to be embraced on the dance
floor. In addition to Chalino’s urgent vocals, Ignacio "Nacho"
Hernández’s accordion, the driving element on each song, compels one to listen to
the entire album straight through. Thankfully, Craft Recordings has done an exceptional
job in presenting this important music in sound that’s as good as you’re ever
likely to hear. The flat, quiet vinyl and presentation are up to Craft’s usual high
standards. |
’ve
become a go-to guy for reviews of the immensely popular music/dance genres known as corrido
and norteño. Perhaps this has to do with my having lived for eight years in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, two decades ago, with only a few hundred miles separating me from the
music’s origin. Perhaps it’s my publicly known appreciation and admiration of
the genres, as expressed in my earlier reviews of 