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Welcome to our review page. We hope to get more
reviews soon. If you know anyone who write about music please
tell them to check us out. If you email
us with your comments we will try to include them on the
site as well.
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The Following review comes from French internet
site Audiosong.net.
Here is the review that appears on their
Songo page in french and translated to english:
| "Ces six excellents musiciens,
vétérans de la scène rock californienne
nous offre un rock latino musclé et décapant
dans la mouvance de Santana. Des textes en anglais ou en
espagnol sur une musique chaude comme les nuits de San Francisco." |
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| "These six excellent musicians,
veterans of the California rock scene, have brought us a
strong and vibrant Latin rock in the Santana style. Lyrics
in both Spanish and English set to music as hot as San Francisco
nights." |
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| "Similar
Artists: Santana, Poncho Sanchez, Malo, Joe Cuba Sextette...San
Francisco-based band plays Latin grooves with soul-inspired
vocals in English (and Spanish). A solid rhythm section
provides groundwork for Funk and Rock excursions."
Robert Leaver |
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Blake's
nightclub in Berkeley wrote:
| "Songo- Latin Funk, Jazz
and Soul - Veterans of the San Francisco music scene. When
these six finally joined to produce their unique sound,
the result was an explosive, electrifying link of their
life experiences and Cuban/Mexican heritage. Their performances
are high energy, tight, groove laden, percussion driven
concoctions of Latin, Funk, Jazz, and Soul..." |
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"Havana Soul", the
first release from San Francisco band Songo, is not songo
music nor is there any obvious connection to Havana. It
is, however, very soulful.
This is a rock CD, no question about
it. Listening to this the first time, I suddenly realized
(meaning "real"-ized instead of just thought about in
words) the difference between rock singers and Latin soneros.
Where the sonero sings very rhythmically and in close
control of his voice, the rockers wail and let it all
go. And when they have an intelligent lyric to sing as
well as a well crafted instrumental base to sing over,
it really works.
Through the rock sensibility of this
CD however, the listener picks up the unmistakable influence
of Latin music. Beyond the occasional Spanish lyrics,
there is Stan Ginn's solid conga playing, the clave and
guiro, the unmistakable metallic sound of the timbales.
And the songs, written by Hector Quintana with Carlos
Palomares (who plays guitar and who produced the disk)
and delivered in an over the top vocal style by El Spider
are thoughtful and intelligent, addressing life and love
in the context of today's society.
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| (Songo
Comment: Thanks to Picadillo.com for featuring our CD and
having such nice things to say about our CD. For those of
you who don't know there is a form in Cuban music, like
Mambo or Cha Cha Cha, known as Songo. While we do not play
Songo in this sense, Songo can have many other meanings.
Try looking up songo on any search engine your sure to find
alot of different meanings. The connection to Havana comes
from the underlying rhythms. In addition both Carlos' parent
were born and raised in Havana, Cuba. In fairness, piccadillo.com
needed to let there visitors who know what the rhythm songo
is know that we are not playing that. We instead chose to
use the Latin influence along with Rock, Soul and Funk to
create our own new sound. So we named the album "Havana
Soul" to show the mix of latin and soul music.) |
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