Joe "King" Carrasco is a Tex-Mex

Tejano music

Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...

 "new wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...

" musical artist, based in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. He is most widely known as part of "Joe 'King' Carrasco and the Crowns".

History

Joe Carrasco founded the band "Joe 'King' Carrasco and El Molino" in Texas in the late 70s. Their album, Tex-Mex Rock & Roll, was self-released and later picked up by Big Beat Records

Big Beat Records

Big Beat Records is an East Coast hip hop and dance-music record label that operates as a subsidiary of Atlantic Records.-History:Founded as an indie label in 1987 by 22-year-old New York deejay Craig Kallman, the company initially operated out of Kallman's parents' apartment...

. Joe "King" Carrasco and El Molino appeared at Raul's club

Raul's (night club)

Raul's was a live music nightclub at 2610 Guadalupe Street in Austin, Texas in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which specialized in punk rock music...

, opening for the Reversible Cords in 1979.

As "Joe 'King' Carrasco and the Crowns", Carrasco and his band released a self-titled album on Stiff Records

Stiff Records

Stiff Records is a record label created in London in 1976, by entrepreneurs Dave Robinson and Andrew Jakeman , and active until 1985. It was reactivated in 2007....

 in 1981, and followed that same year with another self-titled album on Hannibal Records

Hannibal Records

Hannibal Records was a record label and one of the first to work with the World music genre.Hannibal was started by Joe Boyd in 1980. Boyd had produced records by artists such as Nick Drake, The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention and released recordings by these artists as well as...

. They then signed with major label MCA Records

MCA Records

MCA Records was an American-based record company owned by MCA Inc., which later gave way to the larger MCA Music Entertainment Group , of which MCA Records was still part. MCA Records was absorbed by Geffen Records in 2003...

, releasing Synapse Gap in 1982 (with harmonies by Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson

Michael Joseph Jackson was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records...

 on one song), and Party Weekend in 1983. The band's most successful single was the title song from the Party Weekend album, a song had been released earlier as a single.

In the mid 1980s Carrasco moved to Nicaragua

Nicaragua

Nicaragua is the largest country in the Central American American isthmus, bordered by Honduras to the north and Costa Rica to the south. The country is situated between 11 and 14 degrees north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere, which places it entirely within the tropics. The Pacific Ocean...

 to study for several years, writing songs with a political flavor. Later his music style, adding influences from cumbia

Cumbia

Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...

 and reggae

Reggae

Reggae is a music genre first developed in Jamaica in the late 1960s. While sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to most types of Jamaican music, the term reggae more properly denotes a particular music style that originated following on the development of ska and rocksteady.Reggae is based...

, evolved into what he calls "tequila reggae".

Stage Name

He adopted the surname of drug kingpin Fred Gomez Carrasco, who died during the 1974 Huntsville Prison Siege

1974 Huntsville Prison Siege

The 1974 Huntsville Prison Siege was an eleven-day prison uprising that took place from July 24 to August 3, 1974 at the Huntsville Unit of the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville, Texas...

.

Discography

• Joe King Carrasco & El Molino (1978, Lisa Records)
• Tales of the Crypt (1979, Rior Records)
• Joe "King" Carrasco & The Crowns (1980, Indio Records/Recovery Recordings)
• Party Safari (1981, Hannibal Records)
• Joe King Carrasco & The Crowns (1981, Hannibal Records USA)
• Joe King Carrasco & The Crowns
  Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns (album)
  Joe "King" Carrasco and the Crowns is an album by Joe Carrasco, released by Stiff Records on October 10, 1980 in England. An American version with a different track listing and cover design was released by Hannibal Records around the same time.-Side 1:#"Buena"#"Betty's World"#"I Get My Kicks On...
  
  (1980, Stiff Records Europe)
• Synapse Gap (1982, MCA Records)
• Party Weekend (1983, MCA Records)
• Bordertown (1985, Big Beat Records USA)
• Bordertown (1985, New Rose Records (Europe)
• Bandido Rock (1987, Rior Records)
• Royal Loyal & Live (1990, Royal Texacali Records)
• Dia De Los Muertos (1993, Royal Texacali Records)
• Anthology (1995, MCA records)
• Hot Sun (1999, Anaconda records)

External links

• http://www.joeking.com/
• http://www.recoveryrecordings.com/