Latin Influence in Pop Music

Warm Up:

Examine lyrics from the musical West Side Story. As a class, read the brief introduction to the musical, then play an audio clip from the song "America" performed by the original Broadway cast in 1957. 

Discuss as a class:

  1)    What examples do the characters offer of differences between life in rural Puerto Rico and life in urban New York?

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  2)    How do the lyrics convey a sense of ambiguity, a complicated feeling of being excited about living in America yet also missing life in Puerto Rico?

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Guided Practice:

           

In addition to Broadway musicals, the Latin influence also appeared in other styles of American music from the 1950s and early 60s, including Rhythm and Blues and Pop. Listen to an audio clip of Latin influences in Pop music featuring “Spanish Harlem” by Ben E. King (1960), “Under the Boardwalk” by the Drifters (1964), and “Come a Little Bit Closer” by Jay and the Americans (1964).

  3)    What are the chart positions of these songs, which are included in the video?

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  4)    What do the chart positions signify about the popularity of these songs during the early 1960s?

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  5)    Which elements of these songs seem Latin in nature? Consider the percussion, the rhythm, the lyrics, and the vocal delivery.

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The rise of Latin music in popular culture mirrored a boom in Latino immigration to the U.S. between the 1940s and 1960s. Watch a montage of short clips from Democracy at Work in Rural Puerto Rico, a film produced in 1940 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Pay close attention to how the film portrays the economy of Puerto Rico and the quality of life on the island.

  6)    What industry is the Puerto Rican economy based upon? How does the film portray the nature of this type of work? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  7)    If you were living in Puerto Rico under these conditions, what are some reasons you might choose to immigrate to the United States? 

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Display the following graph showing U.S. immigration statistics and dispersion of Puerto Ricans in the United States.

  8)    How does the Puerto Rican population living in the U.S. change between 1920 and 1950?

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  9)    When does the greatest population change take place?

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  10) What does this graph tell us about the dispersion of Puerto Ricans in the U.S.?

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  11) During 1950, what percentage of the total Puerto Rican population living in the U.S. live specifically in New York City?

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Check out the following three photos depicting life in New York City during the 1940s and 50s: 

Mechanical training offered at a Brooklyn factory (1942),

A policeman practicing Spanish phrases (1958)

and New apartment buildings under construction in Spanish Harlem, where a large concentration of the Latin Americans resided (1947).    

Imagine you’ve just moved from Puerto Rico to New York City.

  12) How do you imagine your life in the U.S. differs from your life in Puerto Rico? Consider your living situation, language barriers, employment opportunities, neighborhood, access to education, etc. Cite any details you can infer from the photographs, when applicable.

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Check out Handout2: Tito Puente and El Barrio. Read the introduction and interview excerpt aloud to the class.

  13) What did growing up in Spanish Harlem, or El Barrio ("the neighborhood") provide for Tito Puente in terms of his music education?

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Watch a clip of Tito Puente performing "Maria Cervantes" in the 1950s, in which he is playing a vibraphone, a percussion instrument.

  14)  In your opinion, what are some elements of this performance that Tito Puente may have learned while playing music “in the street,” rather than learning formally in university? __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

  15) This performance aired on television during the 1950s. Do you think this performance was solely for a Latin-American audience, or might this music have appealed to a wider audience? Explain your reasoning.

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Read the following quote aloud from Charlie Thomas, an African-American New York native who sang in the R&B group, the Drifters:

"Brought up in Harlem, you’d be around a lot of Puerto Ricans, so the Latin feel is part of your life...weekends and all night long, that’s all you’d hear: the sound of Puerto Rican drums going through your head.”

  16)  If you were a musician or music fan living in New York City during the 1940s and 50s, how might you be influenced by the “Latin feel” that was then prevalent in the city?

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Check out the following two images, an album cover from Desi Arnaz’s 1947 recording “Babalu” and a 1956 magazine cover featuring I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. In addition to being a popular Latin musician during the 1940s and 50s, Arnaz’s character on television, Ricky Ricardo, was also a Cuban-American bandleader.

  

I Love Lucy ran from 1951 to 1957 and was the most-watched show on American television for four of its six seasons.

  17) How might the popularity of I Love Lucy have affected mainstream America’s familiarity with Latin American music during the 1950s?

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  18) In your opinion, by conveying a marriage between an American woman and a Cuban man, how might I Love Lucy have advanced the idea of integration and cultural mixing in 1950s America?

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Closure: S. write about one of the two:

Prompt #1: What examples of cultural mixing did you take note of during your “trip” around midtown Manhattan? How did Latin-American music and dance seemingly influence popular art and culture in 1950s New York City?

Prompt #2: Which rhythms, genres, artists, or instruments were prevalent in your own musical upbringing? Was there a particular style of music you heard often at home or in your neighborhood? Does this exposure influence your choice of music today, and if so, how?