Leito alerted me to this great 45 by a band from Uruguay, the Blizzards.

According to the article in the Uruguayan magazine Hit, “Blizzards Soplando Fuerte” (Blizzards Blowing Wildly) the band began in 1965, choosing their name from a Spanish-English dictionary.

After some personnel changes, they arrived at the lineup on this record: Leonardo Ferreira lead guitar, Ariel Burgueño on rhythm guitar, Héctor ‘Bocha’ Marrone on organ, Juan Roberto Agrello Gravestijin (from Holland) on bass, and Carlos Saco Fernández (from Spain) on drums.

An early broadcast on a radio program ‘Caverna Uno’ of the newspaper El Espectador led to bookings at dances and then regular appearances on two popular music shows, the ‘Discodramo Show’ and ‘Gente Joven’ (Young People). Leito tells me “They were seen as an ‘underground band’ [‘onda subterránea’], but nevertheless had two major performances in their career, one on the Canal 4 (Channel 4) and another La Liguria.”

A producer named Barros was looking for a group to record a song he had for his brand new label, Prodisa. Somewhat mysteriously this song, I Know You’re Cryin’ (Sé que estás llorando) is described as Canadian but I haven’t been able to find the source for it yet. The band performs it well, but at points they sound more than ready to cut loose.

They backed the top side with an original composition, Looking Through (Mirando a través). On this song they create an original, distinctly South American sound, opening with a very funky drum and bass combo then adding buzzing guitar and splashes of organ. Continuing for almost five minutes, the song alternates verses with organ and guitar solos. ‘Bocha’ Marrone occasionally uses a wah-wah pedal, and a droning guitar answers each wash of organ.

They sang in English because it was a ‘tougher’ language than Spanish, which, being ‘sweeter’, was “less adaptive for the type of music we make” (“se adapta mucho más al estilo porque es una lengua más dura que el castellano; éste en cambio es más dulce y por eso menos adecuado para el tipo de musica que nosotros hacemos”).

When asked to sum up how they felt about their first record, the band gave this half-hearted statement:

Considering the technical limitations we faced, we think it went rather well. It’s one thing to record with eight tracks in Argentina, and another to do it in Montevideo with only two tracks. All in all, we were satisfied with it.

(Dentro de las limitaciones técnicas del medio, creemos que salió bastante bien. Por supuesto que una cosa es grabar en la Argentina, con ocho pistas, y otra distinta es hacerlo en Montevideo, donde sólo se dispone de dos pistas. Asi y todo, quedamos bastante satisfechos.)

Their recording career was short-lived, with just one other single, Tell Mama / Endless Road, released in 1972 on the relatively large label Clave. The Hit article mentions plans to record a full album, and also that the Blizzards would contribute to an album featuring stars of Gente Joven, but I don’t know if any of these were ever done.

Thank you to Leito for sending the photos, scans and songs of the Blizzards.