2007 JUNE 21 #172
Johnny and Charley - La Yenka
MP3:
La Yenka (1:58)
Eh! Nena (2:11)
Baila La Yenka (1:56)
Yenka Riketik (1:55)
Ah, the perplexing and mysterious 'Yenka'! Dance craze of the sixties, you remember. . . . No, neither do I. Have a look at the time honoured black-and-white-footprint diagram on the back cover. We tried actually doing it once, the floorboards never quite recovered. It seems to involve jumping, with both feet together, backwards and forwards a lot. Bloody weird if you ask me. Still, Johnny and Charley, Spanish men with non Hispanic names clad in tartan waistcoats, waste no time or vinyl in their efforts to convert you to this strange practice. No less than four supremely Yenkable ditties adorn this EP. Interesting line up too. Melodica, guitar and timpani feature strongly. Nice. . Anybody out there more Hispanic pop-wise than me who can tell me if this was ever a popular dance in the night clubs of Burgos or wherever. . . I have two copies of this record so there must have been significant numbers of this record in London at some point. Unless I just got lucky. There would have been a lot of spilled lager, that's all I can say.
- Contributed by: Jonathan Allen
Images: Front Cover, Back Cover
Media: 45rpm 7"
Label: Hispavox (Madrid)
Catalog: HH 17-308
Date: Mid 1960s
