RAY BARRETO – ACID (REMASTERED)

Ray's late 60’ss Acid album is a landmark recording – a sublime mixture of Latin jazz, percussion, and soul – grooving hard in a variety of styles, and always hitting the money on every single track. Barretto opens the album on familiar ground, with its high-energy boogaloo-styled salsa sung passionately in Spanish. With the second track, "Mercy, Mercy Baby," the sound shifts dramatically as soul gets a serious drenching in hot sauce. The band chants "Mercy, Mercy Baby" behind Memphis-styled horns, catchy lyrics, timbales, and Barretto's kicking congas. The title track, "Acid," opens up sparsely with a lazy hypnotic bass and percussion groove over which stretches the muted trumpet sounds of Rene Lopez, and it’s one of those tunes you'll be playing over and over again until your CD player burns out. After a rock-steady timbales solo by Orestes Vilato, the band begins calling out "Barretto, Barretto," and master Ray steps forward, obliging them with one of his most fiery and intense conga solos ever. The rest of the record is equally great – with cuts like the bouncy groover "Soul Drummers", the tasty boogaloo "El Nuevo Barretto", and the extended "Espiritu Libre", a great Latin jazz track. Acid turned on a lot of important players with its irresistible blending of Latin and soul music, significantly helping to bring about the rise of the Afro-Latin funk revolution.

Tracks
1. El Nuevo Barretto (Barretto) - 5:50
2. Mercy, Mercy, Baby (Barretto) - 2:44
3. Acid (Barretto) - 5:05
4. Deeper Shade of Soul (Barretto) - 2:46
5. Soul Drummers (Barretto) - 3:48
6. Sola Te Dejare (Barretto/Lopez) - 3:49
7. Teacher of Love (Barretto/Cruz) - 2:27
8. Espiritu Libre (Barretto) - 8:27

Musicians:
Ray Barretto - Percussion, Congas, Vocals
Big Daddy  -  Bass
Rene Lopez  -  Trumpet
Roberto Rodriguez  -  Trumpet
Adalberto Santiago  -  Vocals, Bells
Orestes Vilato  -  Timbales
Pete Bonet  -  Vocals, Guiro