Music Review: Larry & Joe, ‘Manos Panamericanos’
Reviewed by Doyle Turner for Adventures in Americana
2.05.25
On their new album, virtuosic multi-instrumentalists Larry Bellorín (Monagas, Venezuela) and GRAMMY-nominated Joe Troop (Winston-Salem, North Carolina) fuse their respective Venezuelan and Appalachian folk traditions on the harp, banjo, cuatro, fiddle, upright bass, guitar, and maracas to prove that music has no borders.
—
It’s been a bit since I’ve fallen head over heels. Sometimes our ears encounter something that changes the sonic landscape, like my first time hearing the Wooten Brothers band. Discovering new things that genius minds can do with melody and rhythm can surprise and delight, and aren’t those the ingredients for joy? Aren’t those the very ingredients for love?
Larry & Joe say that they were “destined to make music together.” Listen to their new album Manos Panamericanos and you’ll ask yourself, when has destiny ever been so kind?
The title itself translates to “Pan-American Brothers,” playfully written to “insinuate poorly spoken Spanish,” as if one is trying to cross the language barrier in an imperfect effort to understand one another. To supersede our differences in search of our commonalities.
In their song “Silver Lining” they sing, “Since the day I met you, I’ve been feeling all new kinds of joy.” That sentiment is a truth for the listener when experiencing this album. Larry & Joe meet at the unlikely crossroads of bluegrass and Llanera music (A style of music from the Llanero culture in Colombia and Venezuela). Their creation bends and twists with blue notes and bends that comfortably reside in the bluegrass world, while carrying the whole mix along on latin rhythms and melodies that are designed to make your body move.
There is a joy inherent in this fusion that carries beyond the boundaries you and I believe we know about music genres. Just about the time you think you’ve got their style pegged, Larry & Joe throw you the most beautiful of curve balls—for example, a slinky fiddle part that leans into the swerve amidst a rhythm that would be at home anywhere south of the border—and you realize that this is an entirely new ball game.
Imagine a tango-like cadence with a banjo that glides from phrase to phrase and the loveliest of slides up and down the neck. There is an accordion too, and all of this is accompanied by mariachi harmonies. This is what you hear in the enticing Larry & Joe song “Adios Muchachos.” The bluegrass licks on the banjo make immediate friends with the sound of a night in old Paris.
The irresistible latin-based push and pull motion resides among the funky fretless bass line and familiar folk sound of “Move on and Let Live.” The virtuoso stringwork provides beautiful contrast to Larry & Joe’s trading of soulful tenor lines:
If you’re trying to find the answer
Just look deep inside yourself
and amidst life’s ceaseless clatter
you’ll learn to move on and let live.
The message urging us to accept one another rhymes beautifully with the sense of fate at the heart of this virtuosic duo.
Diversity is known to bring strength in the realm of ideas, in the world of humans, and in the natural world. This album is built of diversity, from the approach, to the fusion of musical roots, to the obvious joy that both players exude at being able to create this fresh and new thing.
Believe you me, there is nothing in your experience like what you hear on this album. These two musicians have created a blend of style, rhythm, and sound that is singular and unique, yet the joy that you experience when you accept this invitation will be as common and familiar as the feelings of newfound fascination and love we all get to experience.
You deserve surprise. You deserve joy. You deserve to fall in love, too. Loosen your arms and let your body move as it wants to this album, because your hips care little for geography and imaginary geopolitical lines demarcating and dividing the people of this earth. We are people first. Let’s learn to “move on and let live” as Larry & Joe invite us. This album will speak joy to you too.
Click for the source.
