100 Greatest Songs of the 60’s #59 – Pete Rodriguez – I Like It Like That

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Releasd: 1967

Tastemakers didn’t always come with a thousand heavily filtered headshots and sponsorship; in the past they went by many handles, did many things and usually kept their opinions off people’s payrolls.

Symphony Sid Tarnopol – the name’s true origin depends on whom you take your anecdotes from – began as a disc jockey in the late 1930’s and as someone who’d had to navigate three decades in and out of the entertainment business, won in that time almost as many enemies as friends.

Working for New York’s Spanish language station WEVD, one day in 1967 he gave a first spin to a boogaloo number called I Like It Like That by the veteran bandleader Pete Rodriguez. Almost completely against the grain of era, it’s Latin swing and infectious Salsa rhythms made it almost impossible not to dance to, and it’s subsequent revivals have shown a remarkable durability. Sid the tastemaker had struck again.

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Hi, my name is Andy & I live in Leeds, in northern England. I've been writing about music for more than ten years. My work outside of this blog is featured on Live4ever and Contact Music.