From the sinuous sounds of salsa to the new wave of Latin pop gospellers, Latin Music is undergoing unprecedented attention. George Luke reports.

Now happily married with a daughter and two sons, Alvaro makes his home in California and has spent the past 11 years travelling across the US and Latin America with his 14-piece band, playing his brand of sanctified salsa music. His first recording was a Mariachi album, which he used as a gateway to minister to the Mexican community in his hometown. In 1998, he recorded the album 'Para Dios No Hay Imposible' ('For God, Nothing Is Impossible'), working with a close friend Jorge Piro Romero, whom he describes as one of the best salsa singers for the Lord. He enjoys performing live, but understanding the expense involved in taking a 14-piece band on the road, he's just as happy to travel alone and sing to backing tracks. "It's really all about ministry, as far as I'm concerned," he says.

ALEX MAYSONET
Originally from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, Alex now lives in New York City, and has been ministering in song for 16 of his 30 years. He's a multi-talented singer/songwriter whose five albums have sold well in the US and abroad, and he has toured both Spain and France.

His most recent album, 'S lo DiosBasta!' came out in April '98. Alex's variation on salsa is unique because horns don't feature in it as much as they usually do. His style ranges from tropical rhythms to ballads, and although his recordings so far have been in Spanish, he does have plans to record in English. "Latin music is definitely catching on," says Alex. "You hear it more and more on Christian radio over here these days, which is great for us."

The story of the growth of Latin Christian music is encouraging and a reminder that God is at work all around the world. On the other hand, the story of Latin music's eventual acceptance into the wider CCM culture is just more proof of the inherent racism and bandwagon-jumping which sadly are still alive and well in the industry. As recently as a couple of years ago, nobody in the industry had any interest in the music; Latin gospel singers who tried to get their music heard by a wider audience were more or less ignored. Even where one or two Latino artists did get a look in, they weren't really given a chance to express their culture (Jaci Velasquez's 1998 autobiography has a whole chapter on her family - with no mention of where her parents come from!). Today, all that has changed - and the whole reason why can be summed up in two words: Ricky Martin.

Last year, Ricky got to number one in the US (and subsequently the UK) and became the world's biggest selling artist - and all of a sudden, the very Christian labels who weren't interested in Latin music just a few months earlier started a mad rush to sign up Latin artists. It's sad and proves nothing's changed. But we Brits can't afford to be smug and point the finger at America's blinkered Christian music industry - after all, our record companies have treated Asian gospel in pretty much the same way.

SURFING FOR SALSA
The Internet's a good place to start a search for Latino gospel. But don't bother typing ("Latin American gospel" or "Latin American Christian music") into the search engines you normally use, as you're not likely to come up with much. One excellent site to visit is the Internet Underground Music Archive (IUMA) at www.iuma.com. A scan through either their Christian or Latin sections should give you a lot of good stuff (including recordings by Alvaro Moreno and Alex Maysonet, both featured in this article). It's also good for discovering some of the other wonderful music that's been missed by the established industry.

Also worth a visit is the Bompastor site (www.bompastor.com.br), which claims to be the top distributor of gospel music in Latin America. Being a Brazilian website, it's in Portugese - so unless you speak the language, it might be a good idea to first access the Babelfish translation service (www.babelfish.altavista.digital.com/), and type in the web address from there, asking it to translate from Portugese to English (it's not a perfect translation, but it is useable).

As I mentioned earlier, English-speaking search engines are pretty useless for looking for this stuff. However, there's a more useful alternative: the Amen Amen search engine, at www.amen-amen.net (think of it as a Yahoo for Spanish-speaking Christians).

Going to http://www.amen-amen.net/musica.htm takes you straight to its music pages, where there are loads of sites to choose from (this is where your GCSE Spanish comes in handy). Amongst the sites listed, there's Intervizion (www.inter-vizion.net/): an online magazine with current news, reviews and other useful information. Apart from the kind of music we've been looking at here, you'll also find information on Spanish recordings made by "regular" CCM acts. So if you really need to hear Guardian's 'Bottle Rocket' album en Espanol, you know where to look

Some websites give you a choice between pages in English or Spanish. For those that don't, a visit to Babelfish might also help - but be warned: as with the Portugese, its Spanish translations can sometimes be a bit iffy.

BLUFF YOUR WAY THROUGH LATIN MUSIC (A Brief Glossary)
Bossa nova ("new wave"): A sophisticated new style of Brazilian music from the 1950s, which became the basis for cheesy listening muzak (or 'loungecore', as it's now known).
Cumbia: Colombia's most popular dance music.
Lambada: A dance rhythm from northern Brazil which achieved worldwide notoriety in the early 1990s. Often referred to as "The Forbidden Dance".
Mariachi: Mexican band dominated by trumpets and strings (famous for their enormous hats).
Merengue: Roots dance music originally from the Dominican Republic.
Muy caliente: Spanish for "very hot". The most succinct description of Latin music.
Salsa: A sauce made from tomatoes and chillies, which goes rather well with tortilla chips. Also the name of the most internationally popular genre of Latin music.
Samba: Brazil's most famous dance.
Son: Cuban precursor of salsa; also a generic name for various Mexican styles.

FIVE TUNES WE MADE DO WITH
(in the days before we discovered Latin gospel)
1. PHILIP BAILEY - The Wonder Of His Love
A catchy piece of lightweight pop-salsa, title track from the EW&F singer's gospel debut.
2. KOINONIA - Senor
Tropical-sounding tune from their 'Frontline' album.
3. PAPRIKA SOUL - He Loves You
Originally recorded by Seawind (Michael Jackson's preferred horn section), this Latin/house cover surfaced on the underground soul scene circa 1992.
4. ANDRAE CROUCH - Let's Worship Him (Vamos A Alabar)
Since his 'Finally' album (from which this came), Andrae has consistently included a Latin-flavoured track on his albums - and quite good they are, too.
5. ETW-LaGuerra