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El Corrido de Nogales (The Corrido of Nogales)

Robert Lee Benton, Jr. and Oscar González
Audio
El Corrido de Nogales (The Corrido of Nogales)
On Tuesday, 27 August 1918, things were tense in the twin border cities of Nogales, Arizona and Nogales, Sonora as a result of rumors that German spies were working in Sonora against the US. The mere crossing of a Mexican man into Sonora, and the drawing of guns on the US side, incited a battle that left 3 Americans and 30 Mexicans dead. This corrido comes from a typed manuscript that had originally been in the possesion of Bobby Benton's father. The manuscript version opens with a recited stanza, sung at the start of this performance. The formality of this opening, coupled with the final stanza about singing the song for dos reales (fifty cents), suggests that the corrido circulated either by phonograph record or printed broadsheet.