On The Road With Rock 'n Roll
File includes the 12 tracks of their 1957 Golden Crest LP
plus both sides of the Rio 78 issued as by
Armando Almandarez Y Su Conjunto Mexico (tracks #13 & #14)
*
Following text is from The Ponderosa Stomp website :
Mando and the Chili Peppers have perhaps inspired more
fantasy and fancy than anyone else in the hallowed halls where the Mystic
Knights of the Mau-Mau dream up their doings. They've topped the wish list from
day one; their shrine is bowed to daily in the Knights' Hall Of Fame; toasts
are often seen raised to the glory of their sole long player, 1957's On The
Road With Rock 'n' Roll. So the very idea that they're going to be playing the
2005 Ponderosa Stomp is at once unbelievable and at the same time just as it
should be. If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, take into account
that Mando and the Chili Peppers are no ordinary band. In fact, at times their
very existence has seemed almost too good to be true. The aural evidence suggests
a group of swamp pop fanatics (who also have a particular affinity for jazz,
country and western and Little Richard) raised in a border town barrio
recording at Cosimo's studio in New Orleans' quite possibly with a few Crescent
City cats sitting in on the session. And where did they disappear to after
churning out that one great long player of the ages? Rumors that some of the
band moved to Chicago and worked with Eddy
Clearwater seemed at once too good to be true and yet…well, but of course!!
Led by one Armando Almendarez, nee Mando, the Chili Peppers originally came to
life as San Antonio Alegre before changing their name to the slicker Mando and
the Latineers. Texas guitarist Randy Garibay recalled the band's glorious
beginnings for an article in the San Antonio Express News: "I'd go to
these house parties with my brother and this guy Armando Almendarez and San
Antonio Alegre would be playing. They'd do the standard polkas and boleros and
then, all of a sudden, with Mando playing accordion, they'd break into
'Lucille' or 'Just Because' by Lloyd Price. It was amazing. That's when I first
heard rock 'n' roll."
Inspired by Little Richard, Fats Domino, Gatemouth Brown and Clifton Chenier,
when Mando began wielding his accordion for San Antonio's Rio Records in the
mid-fifties, he blazed through breakneck renditions of Chenier's "Boppin'
The Rock" and Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" alongside the usual
crudely-recorded conjutos that the label specialized in. When Mando swapped his
squeezebox for an electric bass and boyhood pal Jesse "Chucho"
Perales traded his bajo sexto for an electric guitar, the Latineers were born.
By 1956 they had their own TV show on San Antonio's KCOR entitled "Rock
'n' Roll"(!!) and were the proud owners of a black Packard limousine which
took them to engagements in Vegas and Denver, where Golden Crest Records boss
man Clark Galehouse staggered upon one of their red hot stage performances in
the middle of a snow storm. If the liner notes to On The Road With Rock 'n'
Roll are to be believed, Galehouse, a Long Island plastics manufacturer who
dabbled in big band recordings, was only in Denver due to the blizzard that had
grounded his plane en route to a music convention in Idaho. Galehouse changed
their name to the Chili Peppers and released their first single, a swampy, Fats
Domino-esque treatment of the 1939 standard "South Of The Border"
backed with the bayou-meets-barrio rocker "Don't Say Goodnight."
The results were magical. The band's insistent, triplet-infused back beat
coupled with Mando's lilting, laid-back Tex-Mex vocalizing made "South Of
The Border" the absolutely definitive rendition of an already great song,
and it became a hit along the Gulf Coast, particularly in New Orleans. They
followed it up was the frantic mambo-charged "I Love To Eat Chili in
Chile," which sounded like Perez Prado cutting loose with a Crescent City
R&B band. It's flip side, a Mando-ized version of George Morgan's country
classic "Candy Kisses," pointed the way to the future: When On The
Road With Rock 'n' Roll hit the racks (complete with an in genius cover photo
of the band parked on the side of the highway strapping a bevy of Fender amps
and guitars to the roof of their Packard!), "San Antonio Rose,"
"I'm Walkin' The Floor Over You" and "There's A New Moon Over My
Shoulder" stood proudly alongside originals like "Why Can It
Be," "Swingin' Baby" and "This Is True Love." There
were also stripped-down, rocked- up pop numbers like "Someday (You'll Want
Me To Want You)," "Beg Your Pardon" and "Harbor
Lights," Marvin and Johnny's slow burning Pachuco anthem "Cherry
Pie" and, perhaps most tellingly, a crazed, balls-to-the-wall take of
Guitar Gable's "Congo Mombo."
On The Road With Rock 'n' Roll was a bold step for Galehouse, as LPs were a
rare commodity for rock 'n' roll bands in 1957 (two years later, he'd roll out
the red carpet for Tacoma, Washington's similarly rocking Fabulous Wailers,
whose stunning debut LP was unleashed in 1959), but the album stands as one of
the best ever, genres be damned. Not long after its release, the Chili Peppers
drifted into rock 'n' roll's bottomless underground. By the time Ace Records
reissued On The Road With Rock 'n' Roll in 1998 the members' whereabouts were
completely unknown. Seven years of detective work later, the Tex-Mex rock 'n'
roll pioneers are set to play their first gig in over forty years!!