Friday, December 28, 2018

Los Lobos - Midnight Shift - Non-Album Tracks (1995-1998)

This is the next in my series of Los Lobos stray tracks albums. This covers 1995 to 1998, which is still close to what I consider their peak period of the early 1990s, so this is more excellent music from them.

Los Lobos has done a lot of songs for soundtracks and tribute albums, and that's the case again here. In fact, eight of the 15 songs here come from albums like those. Two more songs come from the spin-off group "Los Super Seven." The two songs from that prominently feature the two main singer-songwriters from Los Lobos, so they're basically Los Lobos songs.

The remaining five songs here come from the 1995 Los Lobos album "Papa's Dream." I don't consider that a "real" Los Lobos album, because it's very much an album aimed at children. If you like the whole thing, more power to you, but it contains many songs I'm not keen on hearing repeatedly. A lot of them are sung by people not in Los Lobos, some are too child-oriented for my tastes, and there are pointless remakes of "La Bamba." I've included the five songs I feel stand on their own, for adults who aren't into the whole "Papa's Dream" story for children.

By the way, I edited out about forty seconds of the instrumental "Mariachi Suite." Sorry if you don't like that, but I make these albums mainly for my own listening pleasure. The suite contains three instrumentals that don't have much to do with each other. The first two are nice, but the third is jarring and low-fi, and ruins the mood created by the first two. And, at only forty seconds long, it's too short to go anywhere interesting musically. I think the suite is much better without that part.

01 Cancion Del Mariachi [Morena De Mi Corazon] (Los Lobos with Antonio Banderas)
02 Let Love Reign (Los Lobos)
03 Mariachi Suite [Instrumental] [Edit] (Los Lobos)
04 Lonely Avenue (Los Lobos)
05 Wooly Bully (Los Lobos)
06 Route 90 (Los Lobos)
07 Corrido for Papa Lalo (Los Lobos)
08 La Mananita Alegre (Los Lobos)
09 La, La, La (Los Lobos)
10 Midnight Shift (Los Lobos)
11 Pepe and Irene [Instrumental] (Los Lobos with Money Mark)
12 Me Estas Matando (Los Lobos)
13 Lonesome Tears in My Eyes (Los Lobos with Paul Burlison)
14 La Sirena (Los Super Seven)
15 El Canoero (Los Super Seven)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262450/LosLbs_1995-1998_MidnightShft_atse.zip.html

Thanks to Peter at the Albums I Wish Existed blog for the album cover.

4 comments:

  1. Great job on ALL of these , especially with Los Lobos! Just curious as to who those people are on the cover? Definitely not Los Lobos.

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    Replies
    1. Hmmm. Peter made that cover. I'll ask him about it and remove it if need be.

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    2. Oops! Turns out you're right and that wasn't Los Lobos. Happily, Peter has found a different, better cover.

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