CLIENT: Rev-Ola/Cherry Red Records  (London, England)

• Original CD packaging art direction and print design (Photoshop; Quark)
   
• Research, track selection, and liner note composition
   
• Reissue coordination/ production (with Joe Foster of Rev-Ola)

From the liner notes:

Listening to these recordings begs the question: of the two artists on RCA Victor’s 1950s roster, why was Elvis Presley the one feared as such a shockingly revolutionary cultural threat, while Perez Prado slipped through with minimal controversy or resistance?

By the late 1940s, Prado had prominently overturned the prim and proper society Big Band establishment with violent percussion and instrumentation that rebelliously veered out of conventional tune. Prado’s music grunted with a raw, sweaty animalism that even went as far as literal animal cries and howls. Fueled by his own high-kicks and the acrobatic antics of his stage show dancers, Prado’s Latin American jungle beats incited widespread dancing frenzies of wild abandon years before any real rock and roll revolution. Furthermore, unlike lily-white Elvis, Prado was (gasp!) a Latino…