Album: Los Super 7

Heard It on the X, TELARC/NEW NOTE

The X of the title refers to the Mexican border radio stations established in the 1930s, whose call-signs were XERF, XEG, XERB, etc. Built just over the Rio Grande, their huge transmitters and antennae beamed a mixture of R&B, country, Tex-Mex and mariachi music, studded with Bible-punching preachers and quack adverts (goat-testicle implants, anyone?) across the breadth of the USA and as far as Japan and Europe for the next 30 or 40 years. A collective of Tex-Mex musicians (including Joe Ely, Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez and Raul Malo), Los Super 7 here pay tribute to the cultural influence of border radio, joined by Calexico, Charlie Sexton and guest vocalists on a dozen tracks from the radio playlists. There's Lyle Lovett with the skittish country number "My Window Faces the South"; Rodney Crowell giving Buddy Holly's "Learning the Game" a suitably lachrymose treatment; Doug Sahm's "I'm Not That Kat (Anymore)" belted out by John Hiatt; Delbert McClinton tackling "Talk to Me", the Little Willie J

The X of the title refers to the Mexican border radio stations established in the 1930s, whose call-signs were XERF, XEG, XERB, etc. Built just over the Rio Grande, their huge transmitters and antennae beamed a mixture of R&B, country, Tex-Mex and mariachi music, studded with Bible-punching preachers and quack adverts (goat-testicle implants, anyone?) across the breadth of the USA and as far as Japan and Europe for the next 30 or 40 years. A collective of Tex-Mex musicians (including Joe Ely, Freddy Fender, Flaco Jimenez and Raul Malo), Los Super 7 here pay tribute to the cultural influence of border radio, joined by Calexico, Charlie Sexton and guest vocalists on a dozen tracks from the radio playlists. There's Lyle Lovett with the skittish country number "My Window Faces the South"; Rodney Crowell giving Buddy Holly's "Learning the Game" a suitably lachrymose treatment; Doug Sahm's "I'm Not That Kat (Anymore)" belted out by John Hiatt; Delbert McClinton tackling "Talk to Me", the Little Willie John hit, draped in warm West Side Horns; Ruben Ramos fronting a surging norteno-blues version of the title track; and plenty of feisty mariachi cuts. Part musicological exercise, part loving tribute, and great fun, it's a testament to a time when US musical tastes were set by border-radio DJs such as Wolfman Jack rather than MTV.