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[Mortblanc]

The Mavericks are old geezers like us. It has taken them 30 years to become an over night success.

As the stew that makes up American society thickens and changes so does our taste in music. Latin rhythms have been sliding in unnoticed for 50 years now and some of our biggest stars have decided to expose the fact that they are Hispanic background.

Linda Ronstadt has never been a big in England but she is the top female R&R singer of all time over here, outselling most of the other females combined. Most people do not realize that she is of Hispanic background and has the top selling Spanish language recording in U.S. recording history. Her grandfather migrated to Mexico from Germany back in the 1930s to escape Hitler. He married a Mexican woman and moved to Arizona in the early 1940s.

We have two different Hispanic population groups in the U.S.

One group is out of the Mexican tradition and fills the southwest and central U.S. They have strong German influence with lots of trumpets and accordions as well as some interesting guitar variations. Lots of Germans have always migrated to Mexico, ever since the revolutions back in the 1840s.

The other group is from the West Indies and Caribbean area and includes a large group of U.S. citizens from Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. They are as U.S. as us guys from Kentucky and West VA, but grew up speaking Spanish. They are mixed with the Cuban Refugees that filled Florida since 1960 and have brought us a solid Samba and cha-cha sound.

When you mix all that up with Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Merle Haggard, and Lyard Skyard you get some wild music!