Mambo Americano/ Various - Mambo Americano (Various Artists)

The Mambo craze swept through the U. S. popular music culture during most of 1954 and into 1955, competing (surprisingly enough) with the emerging "Swingin' Saddlemen" - Bill Haley, the endless "Annie" vocal group spin-offs, the widespread smash of the Chords' "Sh-boom" and a welter of cute, flower-bower ballads and novelties crooned by the likes of Eddie Fisher, Perry Como and Teresa Brewer. Mambo Americano offers us a comprehensive 63-song collection of Mambo-inspired charts stretching from the sax-blasting of Chuck Higgins to the cool harmonies of the Robins and Harptones, from Cal Tjader to Georgia Gibbs. A wacky Mambo voyage kicking off with Wynonie Harris' suggestive "All She Wants To Do Is Mambo" then weaving through a labyrinth of quirky jazz and bluesy interpretations ending with the close-to-authentic "Leeward Island Mambo" from Big Shell Steel Band of Antigua.