MIKE LAURE - LA SECRETARIA

Mexican Cumbia in The Sixties

I thought while I post this Mike Laure I would also post a bit of info/history about Mexican Cumbia that I found on Wikipedia:

Few musicians in Mexico knew cumbia, and practically the history of cumbia in Mexico is parallel to the rock & roll history and also it had almost of the same way.

Policarpo Calle, an accordionist of cumbia and very popular vallenato musician in Colombia and Mexico with his song "La Porra Caimanera", "La Cumbia chida", "La Monaguilla", "Leyda", "Se cabrio la Cumbia" "Maria Salome" among others, mentions that the first introducer of cumbia in Mexico was the Mexican singer Carmen Rivero [1], she traveled until Colombia to learn cumbia music and to bring it to the country, parallel, Mike Laure a rock & roll musician from Jalisco began with the change of its style of rocker whom was not to him very favorable to a declared tropical musician, began trying in the new "tropical" music genre called cumbia, both, Carmen Rivero and Mike Laure by different ways, did not know that they would be in the pioneers and creators of the real Mexican cumbia.

When Carmen Rivero returned from Colombia, brought a repertoire of Colombian cumbia of Colombian previous decade, the Mexican Rivero made, like Mike Laure a symbiosis of cumbia brought of Colombia with the experience that both had of different music styles.

Meanwhile, Mike Laure, in 1959 and 1960, had already formed its first musical group that just a short time later would change its name to "Los Cometas", (the same name of another group that recorded for CBS Columbia mentioned before), having a musical experience in Rock, Mike Laure makes a particular musical fusion recognized, its fusion of cumbia with the rock & roll, he separated the real Colombian percussion of cumbia replacing with an acoustic Drum kit (because he had instruments to play rock & roll). With relatives of him, introduce some instruments protagonists of cumbia Colombian, like the accordion, sax and clarinet, and the bases of the rhythm is made by guiro (substitute of the guacharaca of the Colombian cumbia) the acoustic drum kit, adding an instrument that already had been used by the Colombians but were not used more because in Colombia began to lose force, we refers to the electric guitar, as rock musician, invariably would have to use it within its recordings.

Mike Laure with its "tropical music" and the cumbia, begun to became very popular, he recorded his songs for "Discos Musart" a Mexican company, his songs were covers of Colombian groups like Antolín y su Combo Orence with the famous "Tabaco mascao", of Combo los Galleros with the "cieguita" Lucy Gonzalez, and of other famous musician, Alejandro Durán with his hit called "039" in accordion, another songs of Corraleros de Majagual and Colombian songs composed by Eliseo Herrera, Julio Erazo, and Cresencio Salcedo among others.

Mike Laure recorded Colombian hits of cumbia and other Colombian genres as Porro, Vallenato or Joropo, the re-recordings had adapted musically to satisfy the Mexican public, and because he did not have experience in this musical genre of cumbia, so the cumbia, almost for the first time has one of its radical adaptations and changes into the hands of Mike Laure, in addition that he did not have the real instruments of an orchestra of Colombian cumbia, Mike Laure used for the first time in recordings of cumbia for Mexican companies the use of accordion, electric guitar, clarinet and sax, and to simulate the percussion it uses "tumbadoras" or "congas". Mike Laure in its recordings imposed guidelines for the future tendencies of cumbia in Mexico, cumbia with accordion, cumbia with sax and cumbia with electric guitar. Although many of cumbias were covers, soon began to be composed the first Mexican cumbias and also recorded by Mike Laure.

Carmen Rivero brought her Colombian repertoire and to have itself later as singer together with Linda Vera, made its recordings for Discos CBS Columbia / Discos Orfeón, reason why soon it begins to become popular due to cumbias famous to cover of Colombian groups, the success subjects were clearly "the chicken farmer will colorá", "fisherman" and like in the race of Mike Laure. They would begin to be made up and to record first cumbias Mexican, like including in his first discs of Carmen Rivero like the subject "To Tabasco" talking about to the Mexican state of Tabasco.