MiCultura recognizes contribution from The Gay Crooners, parents of Panamanian pop
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Panama, 24 May 2020. The Ministry of Culture recognizes the valuable artistic contribution of the well-known Panamanian group, "The Gay Crooners," as parents of the pop genre in Panama and Latin America.
Carlos Aguilar Navarro, Minister of Culture, explained that "this group, filled with evocative and amusing melodies of the time, is without a doubt found in an exclusive list of uncomparable Panamanian talents that have been conquered throughout the world."
On May 14, at the age of 89, David Alexander Campbell Ellen, founder and director of the choreographic-vocal group, originated from the communities of workers in the old Canal Zone, and was born at the end of the 1950s as the most famous of Panama's rock & roll and soul music vocal groups.
As great popular artists, Panamanian people shared with stars with the size of The Platters, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Diana Washington, Tina Turner and BB King, among others, and later decided to change their musical name to "The Crooners Explosives," according to commentator Jesús monk, who wrote about the crooners at www.yucatanencorto.com.
Mario García Hudson, a well-known musical researcher at the Audiovisual Center of the Ernesto J. Castillero National Library, believes that this iconic Panamanian musical alignment caused furor in Central America, South America and Mexico, being a great precursor to rock in Spanish from the Aztec ground from 1963 to 1965.
For his part, Gerardo Maloney, an educator, sociologist and a Panamanian filmmaker with an extensive professional background, emphasized that these great Panamanian musicians differed with the most outstanding vocal groups at the moment with the peculiarity of interpreting his Spanish songs as his outstanding stamp his Panamanian and Latino pride and inheritance.
"They, very soon, would have to conquer the Panamanian public, and later achieve the same success in South America and finally go to the most demanding spots of the show in Mexico, where they would always, with their Panamanian identities, extend their fame in production of their main albums, incurring into cinema and television," Maloney shares.
The educator adds that The Gay Crooners were touring with the famous rocketer, the Little Richard legend (whom they saw as one of his great friends), at the leading stage of the United States and Canada.
