Every year, I mark the beginning of Summer by selecting my album of the Summer, the record that I'm probably going to listen to the most while enjoying the Sun, the sand, the cold beers on the patio.
This has nothing to do with my having great taste in music or anybody's idea of what's going to be hip and cool in the coming months. It's just the way I keep track of the Summers in my life.
This year's selection is an album which was released in 2011. I don't know why I've never heard it before. Maybe it got lost of the seat cushions of the car or something. But if you're as equally unfamiliar with Willy Chirino's "My Beatles Heart" as I was, you're in for a treat.
Chirino was born in Cuba around the time Fidel Castro turned it into his own little prison fiefdom. In 1960, he was spirited to the United States as part of "Operation Peter Pan" a mass migration of children from the island by those who feared the revolutionary government was going to take them from their families.
Years later, having risen to the top of the Latin music scene in Miami, he would write a song about the experience that has become an anthem for Cuban exiles, entitled "Our Day Is Coming".
A perennial nominee and winner of Latin Grammy's, Chirino has released 20 Platinum albums. If you're into Salsa, you've heard him. If you're not, you need to.
Some of my first "Summer Albums" were those of "The Beatles". So it's a particular pleasure to combine that music with what Chirino brings to it.
Enjoy Your Sunday...
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