As the range of what fits into this series widens, the hits get bigger.

Who can now imagine a single by a Cuban bandleader selling millions around the world, as ‘Patricia’ by Perez Prado did back in 1959? And that was not a one-hit wonder situation - Perez did the trick again with ‘Guaglione’. At the time, Cuban music was marketed as mambo, and people really did dance the mambo, long before somebody came up with the less specific marketing term, ‘salsa’. There never was a particular dance called ‘Salsa’ but listen to Patricia and imagine those sensuous bottoms weaving slinkily around the dance floor.

Among the many Cuban musicians who became session musicians in New York in the early 1960s, percussionist Mongo Santamaria was soon recognised as being top dog, often playing for Atlantic artists including Ray Charles. But surely nobody could have expected him to have a huge hit in his own right, when his version of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Watermelon Man’ was picked out from his debut album and widely played first on juke boxes and then on a few radio stations, especially but not exclusively on those stations aimed at the Hispanic market.

‘Grazing in the Grass’ by Hugh Masekela must be one of the most surprising number one hits in the history of the American charts, an instrumental version of a tune that had been first released in Zambia (does anybody know the original?), recorded in Los Angles by South African trumpeter Masekela with local session musicians doing a very good job of sounding South African under the production supervision of Stewart Levine.

Remarkably, in the same year as ‘Watermelon Man’ was a hit (1963), another New York session percussionist also made the national charts in the USA, as ‘El Watusi’ by Ray Barretto crept onto pop radio where it was heard and treated as a novelty record rather than the tip of the huge wealth of Latin American music, much of it recorded for the same label, Tico.

‘Soul Makossa’ by Manu Dibango is widely credited as being of the first American hits to surface primarily through exposure in dance clubs, rather than through the usual routes of juke boxes and radio. Actually, radio did play a big part once it had surfaced via the clubs, but in any case it was a remarkable, path-breaking record and set Manu up on a career that has flourished ever since, especially in France where he had his own TV show for many years.

Although it may have sounded like a studio session group, Cymande was a real band that played live in London clubs before producer John Schroeder discovered them and guided their records into the right hands, enabling the group to have American chart success and to play as the opening act on an Al Green tour. Most of the musicians were Jamaican, but leader Patrick Patterson was from Guyana. Was? He still is from Guyana. Not really given proper attention in the UK at the time, Cymande’s records have become familiar via the wide use of their grooves in rap and hip hop records. The keyboard riff from ‘The Messsage’ was at the heart of M C Solaar’s biggest hit, ‘Bouge de Lá’.

Finally, ‘New York City’ by the Tabou Combo, which was not as universally well known as everything else in this programme, but helped to bring the Haitian group to wider attention. Unusually, the group’s first album was recorded live, produced by Fred Paul and released on his label, Mini Records of Brooklyn (now relocated to Miami).

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