El Chicano - The Best Of Everything

EL CHICANO
The Best Of Everything
1975
256+ VBR LAME mp3
Vinyl rip & scans from MCA-437


This is the second-to-last album EL Chicano recorded for MCA and, despite the name, it's not a compilation of hits. Here's the story behind the title as told by singer Jerry Salas on his website:

A song "The Best of Everything" was submitted to us that we liked and had desided to use as the theme. We didn't want our fans to think it was "A Best of" album that's why we used the mansion, chauffer and period cloths.

Although not as strong as their first four LPs, there are moments that make it worth snapping up, especially the instrumentals "Follow The Apollo" and "Zaire" - the latter being a smokin' seven-minute Santana-esque percussive jam with some screaming organ on the side. Their version of the hippie anthem "Love The One You're With" is passable while the title track sounds more like the Doobie Brothers than was probably intended. "One More Night (Audi)" ain't a bad pop song although it's pretty standard mid-70s AM fare, which could be said for most of the tracks.

No new ground broken here and you can't help but notice the lack of cohesiveness that's foreshadowed in the liner notes with all the personnel changes. It sums up to a somewhat hit-and-miss affair which was likely compounded by the fact the band started spreading itself a bit thin during this period in an attempt to appeal to its widening fan base cultivated by touring the globe extensively.

One More Night

Jerry Salas - Guitar, Vocals
Michael "Mickey" Lespron - Guitar
Bobby Espinosa - Keyboards, Vocals
Joe Perreira - Bass (3,5,6,7,9,10)
Brian Magness - Bass (1,2,4,8)
Enrique "Andre" Baéza - Congas, Bongos, Percussion
Johnny DeLuna - Drums
John Raines - Drums (5,7)
Hector "Rudy" Regalado - Timbales, Percussion
Steve Dorf - Piano (7)
Lenny Roberts - Piano (5)


1 You Can Have The Best Of Everything
2 One More Night (Audi)
3 Put On A Show
4 I Want You To Know
5 Might As Well
6 Follow The Apollo
7 Bringing Me Home
8 Love The One You're With
9 Zaire
10 Primavera

Discography
Some of these are not blogged anywhere so have provided versions obtained from slsk over the years. They're not my rips and are indicated by a bit-rate listed after the title. Most of the MCA releases are available for purchase as digital download directly from the band's website El Chicano Music.

1970 Viva Tirado
@192 at Dreams Never Get Old + Black Acid

1971 Revolución
at Soundological

1972 Celebration
@192 at Soundological + hippy-djkit

1972 Brown-Eyed Girl b/w Más Zacate 7"
(Holland left, France right)

1973 El Chicano
@mp3 at sangrepesada + @m4a at hippy djkit

1974 Cinco
at Soundological

1975 The Best Of Everything
at Soundological

1976 Pyramid of Love & Friends
@192 at Soundological

1976 This Is...El Chicano (released as Dancing Mama in Germany)
@160 at Soundological

1978 Look of Love
French compilation

1983 Do You Want Me 12"
@160 at Soundological

1998 Painting the Moment
Buy at Thump

2008 El Chicano Live
@128 at AfroCubanLatinJazz

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Compilations
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1976 Viva! El Chicano-Their Very Best
@224 at Vlasis-13

1997 Chicano Chant

2004 20th Century Masters - The Best of
@320 at AfroCubanLatinJazz

Soundological's still trying to bring you the best of everything HERE. (updated 2012-07-27)