Los Super Seven

I love this type of music and recommend this if you like Los Lobos,Texas Tornados, Flaco Jimenez, Doug Sahm ,Los Lonely Boys,etc.

Great collection of talent presenting traditional material without irony. Neither artificial emulation of the past, nor snarky remakes, this album is classic music presented by top musicians at the peak of their form. You don't have to be Latino to love it.

I know everybody calls this music and the artists who sing it "tex-mex"
or "conjunto music". On other occasions this may be right f.e. The Texas
Tornados, Los Lobos etc. but this wonderful CD - except for 2 songs -
is 100% traditional Mexican music varying from huapango to bolero,
from norteño to jarocho. No one would say after listening to it
that all these 7 musicians, except one, were North American born citizens
although of mexican origin.I would like to render my respects especially to
the late Freddy Fender who passed away only 3 weeks ago.
One day before he died I reviewed his "La música de Baldemar Huerta" CD and
rated it with 5 stars because you can't give 6! Quite a surprise to find out
he also participated with the Super Seven besides his incredible contribution
to the Texas Tornados.
He started out as the Be-Bop Kid, then became a C&W star and
ended up being probably the best and most important contributor to the
Mexican-American music blends.
Besides the mentioned "Baldemar Huerta" CD, this Super Seven gathering
is without any doubt one of the nicest CD's of my 45 years record buying history!

I love this CD. It combines an interesting mix of artists whose music together or individually is great. The ballads are wonderful and the whole cd is wonderful to listen to. I would recommend it highly!

I readily accept all the other reviewers' assertions that this album represents outstanding Tejano music--it's just not my taste. I have no previous experience with this musical tradition, and I was hoping for something more along the lines of Eddie Palmieri or Arturo Sandoval. To me, this sounds like the kind of pleasant but bland music one would barely notice in the background at a Mexican restaurant. If you're hoping for something with drive or a bit of an edge, this isn't it.

Bought this CD years ago because I LOVED the artwork on the cover (also, I love eclectic latin music)
So, to my pleasant surprise, turned out to be complete perfection, songwriting, vocals, musical
talent, need I say more ? Personally, I think it's the best CD of the three LSS CD's. The best part was that it
turned my on to Ruben Ramos !!
Enjoy~

Over-the-top reviews are hard to believe, but figure it -- why would anyone take the time to do this if they don't love or hate something? I LOVE this CD. It burst into my life a few months ago and it hasn't left. The best cut is "Me Voy Pa'l Pueblo" which is such an upbeat tour de force, both infectiously and musically. But that's just my first favorite. There are my other favorites: Siboney, Calle Dieceseis, El Pescador, Compay Gato, Campesino. Unbelievable amount of great songs and renditions on one CD. It's hard to believe this CD was recorded in one week, but it goes with the miracle that it is -- that this sort of meeting of talent and thrill doesn't happen often anyway so why shouldn't it happen in one week!

This is like a Mexican/Texan supergroup with various musicians mixing it up on various songs. Some of the musicians who come and go are Raul Malo, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Steve Berlin, Rick Trevino and many more talents. Every song is sung in either Spanish or Portuguese which usually makes it harder for me to appreciate but this CD is so great, I had no problem getting past the foreign lyrics. This is music to drink margaritas by!

This album takes off in an interesting different direction for this group. I stumbled onto it on REal Rhapsody and was hooked right away. A fine mix of old standards that any latin music fan will recognize, but all done in distinctive, ear-catching ways. New tunes as well, and the funny but right addition of Veloso's Brazilian portuguese into the otherwise Spanish mix. Fairly straightforward arrangements but all performed with a clear passionate love for the music. Fine recording too. I'm a big latin music fan, have listened to the entire brilliant variety of musics from the latin world, and this album is right up there with the best.

This collection of Latino music and musicians from around globe is certainly in a trajectory away from Los Super Seven, but still in vein of the richness and beauty of this passionate music genre. Especially into "Me Voy Pa'l Pueblo" and "Teresa."

Neat added touch of comments by performers with the words and translation of each cut!

Bought this CD years ago because I LOVED the artwork on the cover (also, I love eclectic latin music)
So, to my pleasant surprise, turned out to be complete perfection, songwriting, vocals, musical
talent, need I say more ? Personally, I think it's the best CD of the three LSS CD's. The best part was that it
turned my on to Ruben Ramos !!
Enjoy~

Over-the-top reviews are hard to believe, but figure it -- why would anyone take the time to do this if they don't love or hate something? I LOVE this CD. It burst into my life a few months ago and it hasn't left. The best cut is "Me Voy Pa'l Pueblo" which is such an upbeat tour de force, both infectiously and musically. But that's just my first favorite. There are my other favorites: Siboney, Calle Dieceseis, El Pescador, Compay Gato, Campesino. Unbelievable amount of great songs and renditions on one CD. It's hard to believe this CD was recorded in one week, but it goes with the miracle that it is -- that this sort of meeting of talent and thrill doesn't happen often anyway so why shouldn't it happen in one week!

This is like a Mexican/Texan supergroup with various musicians mixing it up on various songs. Some of the musicians who come and go are Raul Malo, David Hidalgo, Cesar Rosas, Steve Berlin, Rick Trevino and many more talents. Every song is sung in either Spanish or Portuguese which usually makes it harder for me to appreciate but this CD is so great, I had no problem getting past the foreign lyrics. This is music to drink margaritas by!

This album takes off in an interesting different direction for this group. I stumbled onto it on REal Rhapsody and was hooked right away. A fine mix of old standards that any latin music fan will recognize, but all done in distinctive, ear-catching ways. New tunes as well, and the funny but right addition of Veloso's Brazilian portuguese into the otherwise Spanish mix. Fairly straightforward arrangements but all performed with a clear passionate love for the music. Fine recording too. I'm a big latin music fan, have listened to the entire brilliant variety of musics from the latin world, and this album is right up there with the best.

This collection of Latino music and musicians from around globe is certainly in a trajectory away from Los Super Seven, but still in vein of the richness and beauty of this passionate music genre. Especially into "Me Voy Pa'l Pueblo" and "Teresa."

Neat added touch of comments by performers with the words and translation of each cut!

I agree one should listen to each Los Super Seven as a separate project. I truly enjoy this cd and listen to it fairly often. I grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and vividly remember sitting on the porch with a transister radio stuck to my ear listening to music I had never even imagined existed. (at least till my mom dragged me into the house and made me go to bed/or usually took the radio away cause I would listen under the covers)
Border radio was a seminal influence on my musical upbringing and I believe many others of my generation. As the late 60's progressed we were listening to a wide range of genres of music. Check our album collection and you'd find Buddy Holley, Hank Williams, Beatles, Stones, Muddy Waters, Santana, Bob Wills, Ravi Shankar, Miles, Zappa, Coltrane, and plenty of others that never made it big but were great in a variety of styles. We didn't care what type of music as long as it was good.

I'd like to share a review of this cd I stole from iTunes (don't worry, I give credit at the bottom):

Los Super Seven isn't a band, per se-- it's a collective, organized by manager Dan Goodman, who comes up with a concept for each of the group's albums and assembles a band to fit. For their third album, Goodman turned to music journalist/record producer Rick Clark, whose giveaway CD's for the Oxford American journal ar3 highly regarded in certain quarters. Inspired by ZZ Top's classic boogie rock tribute to border radio, "Heard It on the X," Clark came up with a sharp idea: a salute to the heyday of AM radio on the Texas/Mexico border, when rock & roll, blues, country, jazz, Western swing, and mariachi mixed freely. Clark and Goodman drew up a list of songs and musicians to play them, recruited two different core bands- indie rockers Calexico and a group featuring Charlie Sexton, who also served as the third producer on this album (along with Clark and Goodman), with drummer Hunt Sales- and then brought in a bunch of Texas-identified singers. Some-like Raul Malo, Joe Ely, Rick Trevino, Ruben Ramos and Freddy Fender- were Los Super Seven veterans, while others- John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Rodney Crowell and Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown- were new to the game. That list of musicians signals that Heard It on the X is not nearly as Latin-centric as its predecessor, Canto, which theoretically means it may play to a wider audience, but in 2005, with all this roots music and versions of songs that are 30-40 years old, it's unlikely that this will get much play outside of roots fanatics and those who long for the heyday of Musician magazine. That said, Heard It on the X is executed about as well as it could be. The song selection is expert, touching on lesser known tunes by such Texas giants as Doug Sahm and Buddy Holly and standards by Blind Lemon Jefferson, ZZ Top and Bob Wills, adding a few cult favorites and a new tune or two along the way. While this certainly reads like an eclectic listen on paper, in practice it flows easily, thanks to both the house bands, the professional (albeit a bit too clean) production, and the fact that the borders separating these genres are virtually nonexistent these days. There's no real cross-pollination within the grooves themselves (having Ramos sing the title track doesn't quite qualify, since it till comes across as bloozy boogie rock), the styles merely rub shoulders with each other, and since all the musicians already travel in these circles, there are no real surprises (well, apart from Hiatt's mannered vocal on "I'm Not That Kat (Anymore)," but on second thought, that's not much of a surpise, either). But surprises are overrated, particularly with so many similar albums shooting too high and missing the mark. Here, the songs are excellent, performed by the right musicians, and the result is a highly enjoyable record for anybody into any of the featured artists or songwriters. If this doesn't pack the thrill or sense of discovery that the original recordings have, mark that down to the ultimate triumph of border radio - its influence has been so strong and so far-reaching that listeners take its innovations for granted, so an album as nonchalantly diverse as this seems like a welcome everday occurrence.

Album Review provided by All Music Guide /2008 All Media Guide LLC

If you have the first Los Super 7 CD you will realize that there can't be
anything better today nor in the future. I classified that album as one
of the best of the past 45 years. The next CD "Canto" was alright but
this third one was a deception somehow because it isn't a genuine LS7
gathering. Of course I understand that it's more an educational record
on how the border radio stations were like in those days and the music
you could listen to. I love blues and country and if it had been done
by Los Super Seven I would probably classify this better but first of
all there are only very few recordings by the original S7 and secondly
I just don't like most of the selected songs. The first song "El Burro
Song" is great but ridiculous at the same time. This great typical
jarocho sound song sung in English??? It's like if a nice blues song
were recorded in Hungarian! Who could figure that out? The LS7 spirit
can only be found on song 2 and 9 both interpreted by Rick Treviño.
The rest can be forgotten at least on a Los Super Seven record!

Just three observations:
1) Delbert McClinton has become the American Van Morrison
2) Given the music that this album pays tribute to, it could have used a little more spit and a little less polish. That is to say that the proceedings are a bit too tasteful in an NPR kind of way.
3) Observation #2 won't matter that much if you play this CD loud enough, and with the right beer. (I recommend Bohemia.)

In this day and age of lip syncing and homogonized, packed for the masses music it is pretty refreshing to listen to this disc. Great musicians and great songs makes for one terrific disc. I could go on and on, but believe me, this is the best disc so far this year. Guaranteed you'll NEVER hear music this good on the radio!

I have Los Super Seven's first two CDs and they kill. Wonderful original music; a cross-cultural blend of latin-american, carribean, and brazilian herbs and spices. But as indicated by another reviewer don't expect that with LSS 3. This is more traditional border music represented individually by blues, tex-mex, and country swing. It may not be original but who cares! This is great music. With each playing the songs get better and my toes tap harder.

Great music for a party or a prelude to good lovin'.

Buy it!

I love this type of music and recommend this if you like Los Lobos,Texas Tornados, Flaco Jimenez, Doug Sahm ,Los Lonely Boys,etc.

Great collection of talent presenting traditional material without irony. Neither artificial emulation of the past, nor snarky remakes, this album is classic music presented by top musicians at the peak of their form. You don't have to be Latino to love it.

I know everybody calls this music and the artists who sing it "tex-mex"
or "conjunto music". On other occasions this may be right f.e. The Texas
Tornados, Los Lobos etc. but this wonderful CD - except for 2 songs -
is 100% traditional Mexican music varying from huapango to bolero,
from norteño to jarocho. No one would say after listening to it
that all these 7 musicians, except one, were North American born citizens
although of mexican origin.I would like to render my respects especially to
the late Freddy Fender who passed away only 3 weeks ago.
One day before he died I reviewed his "La música de Baldemar Huerta" CD and
rated it with 5 stars because you can't give 6! Quite a surprise to find out
he also participated with the Super Seven besides his incredible contribution
to the Texas Tornados.
He started out as the Be-Bop Kid, then became a C&W star and
ended up being probably the best and most important contributor to the
Mexican-American music blends.
Besides the mentioned "Baldemar Huerta" CD, this Super Seven gathering
is without any doubt one of the nicest CD's of my 45 years record buying history!

I love this CD. It combines an interesting mix of artists whose music together or individually is great. The ballads are wonderful and the whole cd is wonderful to listen to. I would recommend it highly!

I readily accept all the other reviewers' assertions that this album represents outstanding Tejano music--it's just not my taste. I have no previous experience with this musical tradition, and I was hoping for something more along the lines of Eddie Palmieri or Arturo Sandoval. To me, this sounds like the kind of pleasant but bland music one would barely notice in the background at a Mexican restaurant. If you're hoping for something with drive or a bit of an edge, this isn't it.