mixing mariachi with flamenco

When we decided to accept the offer and come down to Mexico for my husband's work opportunity, my sweet Dominican husband asked me as a joke; you promise me  that you will not fall for some Mexican man and leave me? My answer was obviously; of course not ...  I mean of course I will NOT fall for some Mexican man and leave you and Yes I promise you...

... I did fall or perhaps not fall but my knees got a bit weak.  It was however my husband who introduced me to  the man and the man being Alejandro Fernández. It was after our honeymoon in Costa Rica, we were back in cold Montreal and we were going some place or other in the car. In Costa Rica we had been to a few karaoke places. My sweet Dominican loves to sing and I want to be the supportive wife ... every now and then... until I can't handle it no more. It's not my husband the problem, it's all the drunk people who think they can sing. Now that my sweetheart knew we were off to Mexico he wanted to practice a more Mexican repertoire to his performance. So he put on some early years of Alejandro Fernández ... Sin tantita pena

I heard this song sang from a karaoke version by my husband and I thought to myself ... boy oh boy the original must be something. We all know the karaoke versions of anything is what it is, even sang by anybody's lovely husband. 
Ever since we came here to Mexico, I have listened to this song at least 3 times per day and 'I'm still not bored. I love the mix of flamenco and mariachi, makes it beautifully dramatical. I adore it and not just this song all of his early mariachi songs, mostly from the 90's are heaven. He turned pop a bit later on, something I like a bit less but if I get bored and need older songs... I just turn to the papa...Vicente Fernandez.
I didn't know much about Mexico before we came here. I wanted to live here, yes. But why? Some weird illusion mixed with Zorro and Frida Kahlo. Yes, pretty much that and then you add a few cactuses with some Mayan culture. 
Well I'm not at all disappointed. I have still to discover the mayan culture as I'm not quite in the right area for that but we are only 4.5 hours away from Guadalajara, where Alejandro Fernández was born and will be performing in only few days... two days exactly. I thought about it and then I remembered who is working his behind off and coming home smiling and happy to see his wife... so I thought ... Alejandro Fernández is really great on my iPod until he for some reason happens to throw a concert a bit closer to where we are. Or my husband would let me drive while he sleeps ... 
I read that Alejandro Fernández's first concert actually went a bit so so ... back in the days. He lost his words and started crying... poor thing. The good thing was that his papa was around to help and sing along to the song ... this was actually when he was 5 years old and performing at his father's concert. Too adorable. I love how Mexicans in general seem to be so family wise. I see papas all over the place taking care of their children. Lovely indeed. 

I could obviously end this post by putting a nice video of  Alejandro performing with his father Vicente Fernández, but why would I ? When I can bring two of my superheroes together. One, I actually stood up and held a presentation about at McGill university in Spanish ... so here we go Diego el Cigala (a great flamenco singer from Spain) and Alejandro Fernandez ... in my opinion it does Not get any more beautiful than this... well now that Leonard Cohen is not amongst us anymore...