The Serbian Mexicans

When Buena Vista Social Club came out I tried to get my mom interested in it. I made her listen to the CD but it just wouldn’t sink in. She kept saying that it reminded her too much of a style of music popular during her childhood in poverty stricken 1950s Yugoslavia. The style was simply known as the “Mexican Songs.” I shelved this bit of information and didn’t make much of it until I ran into this record cover of a Serbian mariachi band.

Son Cubano and Mariachi songs share little in common other than Spanish language. Although I have not listened to these three tenors I am confident that their music has nothing to do with Buena Vista Social club.

The record was published by Belgrade Disc Production of Gramophone Records and Music Films. The band is simply called “The Tenors.” The songs are:

My Hat, My Sorrow
White House
You Gave me Everything Mother

The photographs look like they were taken in an automatic photo booth. I can kind of picture these three guys changing into the only mariachi costume they own and popping into a photo booth one at a time to pose for the shots.

The lucky man who once owned this piece of vinyl is Zdravko B. I hope he had a great time listening to it. I’d like to hear this mysterious genre of Yugoslav “Mexican Songs” myself one day.