Rumba Blues Volume Three Guitar Cha-Cha-Cha 1956-1958

Machito brought the mambo from Havana to New York in 1941 but it wasn’t until 1954 that this dance really took off in mainstream America. In 1953, Cuban violinist Enrique Jorrin created a slower kind of mambo which he named the cha-cha-cha, its name suggested by the shuffling of the feet of hundreds of dancers. The cha-cha-cha was easier to dance than the mambo and its characteristic 1-2, 1-2-3 pulse literally swept through the dance floors, firstly of Havana and later, New York. It began to filter into pop and rhythm and blues in 1955 after the release of Perez Prado’s million seller Cherry Pink & Apple Blossom Time. It was this rhythm combined with the New Orleans second line beat that formed the basis of the Stax and Motown sound and the more complex rhythms of funk in the 1960s. And where would rock be without the cha-cha-cha? Respect, Satisfaction, Wild Thing, Louie Louie all owe a debt to Jorrin’s cha-cha-cha beat.