Joe Bataan - Riot! (1968/2024) [Official Digital Download 24/192]

Joe Bataan’s Riot! was the biggest-selling Latin music album when it came out in 1968 – that eventful year of urban riots, political protest and cultural awakening across America. The album’s music was the sound of the times: boisterous Latin soul with its fusion of cha cha cha’s and R&B backbeats along with heartful soul crooning, big-city trombone sounds, hand-clapping and shouting crowds of folk having a great time and raising hell. Anger and ecstasy come together here – the anger over social injustice and the Vietnam War and the ecstatic joy of youth, love and that “good, good feeling.”

The title and lead song on the album, It’s a Good Feeling (Riot), was inspired by a Smokey Robinson number, which Bataan and band members made into a show-tune blending 6/8 Latin conga with rock and roll to create an unforgettable riot/party effect. The record went gold in no time, and it was the one-and-only Bataan leading the youngest band in Latin music – the Latin Swingers – to the peak of popularity.

Bataan is unique. He is, by his own words, a titere or tough guy from the streets of El Barrio, raised in New York City’s legendary Spanish Harlem, or East Harlem, or simply El Barrio, the oldest and biggest Puerto Rican neighborhood, where it all happens on the street. Bataan grew up in those “mean streets,” as in Puerto Rican writer Piri Thomas’ explosive coming-of-age novel Down These Mean Streets, which was released at the same time as Riot! and has much of the same flavor. Bataan was a gang leader who wound up doing a lot of prison time, which is where he taught himself to be a musician and bandleader. He broke into the music field with Gypsy Woman, a Latinized version of Curtis Mayfield’s huge 1961 hit with The Impressions, which became a huge hit and was forever dear to Black and Puerto Rican audiences alike. It was the boogaloo era (1966-1968) but Bataan never liked that term, preferring to use the more embracing and less gimmicky term “Latin soul.” If anyone deserves the title, Bataan is Mr. Latin Soul. He even takes credit for coining the term “salsoul,” the mix of salsa and soul so expressive of the symbiosis between Latinos and African Americans when it comes to culture and daily life.

TRACKLIST

1. Joe Bataan - It's A Good Feeling (Riot) (Remastered 2024)
2. Joe Bataan - For Your Love (Remastered 2024)
3. Joe Bataan - Muñeca (Remastered 2024)
4. Joe Bataan - Pa' Monte (Remastered 2024)
5. Joe Bataan - What Good Is A Castle (Remastered 2024)
6. Joe Bataan - Daddy's Coming Home (Remastered 2024)
7. Joe Bataan - Mambo de Bataan (Remastered 2024)
8. Joe Bataan - My Cloud (Remastered 2024)
9. Joe Bataan - Ordinary Guy (Remastered 2024)



Thanks to the Original customer.