Manzanero: Mexico My Dear Old San Juan Moi

By Curtis W. Long

Born to an English-speaking, African American family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, how did this budding songwriter manage to weave such an intricate, enchanted trail beginning with a hard-scrabble rock band in a remote, Mexican border town, all the way to Mexico City, the musical capital for the Spanish-speaking world? The great improbability of this tale will raise the eyebrows even of those who may tend toward fatalism. The author is a feet-on-the-ground skeptic who, although respectful of those who find comfort in the occult, discovers his skepticism somewhat ruffled by his own experience. It has taken forty-five years for him even to consider the stark improbability of the seeming coincidences that drive this implausible yarn. What was the hidden hand that traced the route of an aspiring songwriter from a dusty, Mexican border town to the glitz of Hollywood; then three thousand miles, coast to coast, to the City of Brotherly Love; up to the autumn attitude of verdant Vermont; through the towering canyons of Manhattan; around the Caribbean portals of Puerto Rico; and then plopped him into the multitudinous m'lange of Mexico City where, out of nowhere, those musicians from the dusty border town would in turn mysteriously direct the songwriter to the sanctuary of the person who, with his star-studded ambience, was destined to dominate the Hispanic worlds popular music scene for at least the next four decades? And, after that strange, circuitous route, why did the hidden hand suddenly pluck the song lyricist from the potential glory to which it had so meticulously guided him?

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1432790188
• ISBN13: 9781432790189
• Release Date: February 2013
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.3" x 6.0"