Fight the Blues

Ricardo Peña partnered with Alfonso Murillo to formed the band Milestone in the summer of 1996. Ricardo sang lead, played guitar and keyboards, and Alfonso played guitar and they both wrote songs. They decided to explore what they called "Latin rock", Afro-Cuban rhythms with elements of rock and blues. The original line up included Ace Rodriguez on bass and Danny Cresap on drums. The band went through changes while playing extensively in Colorado, and eventually recruited Paul Marchetti on drums, Danny Olaizola on congas and Mickey Donofrio on bass. With this strong line up, Ricardo produced Milestone's album Our Truth in 1997.
On this cd Ricardo wrote and arranged the majority of the songs, he sang lead on all the tracks, played organ, piano, requinto, a bit of percussion, some bass, back up vocals, and spotlighted some of his own lead guitar playing. The album features 6 songs by Alfonso: Downtown Denver a rocker number evoking the night life and excesses of this city, Queen of the night, a tender melody with dark lyrics about Alfonso feeling seduced by death (after his beloved wife died), Give me a call, an invitation to hook up set on a 6/8 african groove. Cuando el amor se va features Alfonso's strong lyric writing in spanish (Alfonso is from Madrid, Spain) with a love that has evaporated. Mambo en el parque is a change for Alfonso writing a positive and happily in love song. Ricardo's writing bring us Sangre Mexicana a chacha groove followed by a fast salsa chorus about his romantic brushes with Mexican-American culture (a culture which is different from Mexico where he is from). What our soul is looking for is a bolero featuring great harmonies and Ricardo's first recorded requinto solo. In Fight the blues Ricardo tells us about his approach against hard times. This one features a salsa dancing songo groove with a piano montuno against a 12 bar blues form.
Ignorance is Alfonso and Ricardo's inside joke about the myriad of idiotic situations they would find playing all the dumpy dives they invariably had to endure. Ricardo makes a strong commentary on Today's American society on the rockin' "Ignorance is king" which also features his solos on Hammond Organ and Lead guitar. Our truth is a philosophical look at life with a classical piano introduction inspired by Chopin and a killer traditional son montuno (salsa) groove provided by the great rhythm section of Paul Marchetti, Danny Olaizola and Jose Espino. Afraid of love is a beautiful Gospel ballad in the style of Ray Charles and Billy Joel. The album finishes with Alpedrete a live recording (no overdubs) of the instrumental fusion like jam which features the great solos of Alfonso (guitar), Paul (drums) and Ricardo (piano). The CD sold out and received great praises and has not been available until now. This new downloadable version includes all the songs in the original order and even the hidden track (look for it!). The songs sound fresh and never dated. A testament to the great production of this classic album!