Customer Reviews

Rough Guide to Cumbia

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The "Rough Guide to Cumbia" CD is more than I hoped for. It is absolutely perfect. It is so good that the painter (from Colombia) who is painting our hallways rang my doorbell to ask about it. He wants a copy too. He danced out the door. These are some the older and great performers with an authenticity that is obvious. My only small complaint is the selection by Lisandro Mesa. I think he has better recordings of this song. The range of artists and forms of cumbia is extensive and, as I said, perfect.

When buying the CD one realizes that this is just not another hastily-compiled Cumbia compilation. The beautiful cover art and lengthy liner notes indicate that there is some direction to the piece. The writer of the liner notes obviously knows a very good deal about cumbia in general and great songs in particular. Just about every song in here is a keeper, I especially enjoyed "La Cumbia en Azul" By Jaime Llano Gonzalez. Anyone used to traditional cumbia arrangements will be blown away by hearing his Hammond B3 ordan work. A Wonderful, democratic collection!

This is my second purchase of a "Rough Guide" world music cd, and both have been stellar (the other is the Hawaiian music compilation). This cd is a delightful addition to my music collection. The music is expressive, colorful, and rhythmic, without any cheesy over-production or invasive pop-culture influences. Those of you who enjoyed Buena Vista Social Club will love this! I would highly recommend this compilation to any music fan.

This is truly an excellent cumbia collection. Every song is beautifully arranged and evokes a kind of nostalgia for this "music of the coast." If you are someone who values variety in a CD compilation, however, you might want to give the samples on this amazon website a good listen before you purchase the CD. While the cumbia songs are wonderfully pure and truly representative of this fantastic music, they do sound very similar (which isn't a surprise, of course, because this is a CD of cumbia!). If you like what you hear, then you should certainly get this disc. The music is rhythmically infectious, romantic and will definitely survive many rotations in your CD player. If you enjoy this kind of music, I also have to recommend the "Colombia" CD by Putumayo and any album by Toto La Momoposina, a fantastic Colombian singer, especially "Carmelina" and "Pacanto."

I'll make it short-this is truly the best collection of authentic Cumbia out there. Well done Rough Guides! If you're interested in Latin music, you some times come upon a couple of tracks with this infectious beat and wonder where you can get more. Well, here it is! This CD has all the great Cumbia bands of the past and present. Every single track is a gem in it's self, and is guarenteed to make you dance, sing (even if you don't understand a word, like me), and feel fantastic! Buy it, you won't regret it!