Six Degrees of Grillo
After hearing the duet between Stephen Duros and Jason McGuire, I googled Jason McGuire and found a whole bunch of YouTube videos featuring him. Some of the videos showed performances of a group that included Jose Blanco. Ring a bell?
Jose “El Grillo” Blanco sang our Spanish version of “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)” on the album The Hours Between Night + Day. Did I tell you the story about those lyrics? Well, we contacted Sony Mexico about a Spanish version of Marvin Gaye’s lyrics, assuming that somebody must already covered that great song. We didn’t get a definite answer until the day Grillo arrived at the studio in Santa Barbara – no, there is no Spanish version, none.
In the evening I welcomed Grillo to the studio, showed him around and gave him the news. I also gave him a printout of the original English lyrics, a copy of the music we had recorded, a bottle of vino tinto, a pad of paper and a pen and asked him to write the Spanish version.
The next morning Grillo arrived with Spanish lyrics and sang what you hear on the album.
I always felt the song should have been serviced to latin radio, but Sony/Epic did not agree with me. It received some airplay from radio stations that listened to the album, but it could have been much more. Anyway, I still enjoy our version a lot.
So, sixteen years later Stevo records a piece with Jason, who peforms with Grillo.
