Border themes and music played an important role in the B-Western film genre right from the start. In 1929, Warner Baxter, as the Cisco Kid, sang My Tonya in In Old Arizona, the first Western film to include vocal music. By the mid-1930s, many of the films of Hopalong Cassidy, Buck Jones, Tim McCoy and others had border themes or settings. Most of the music in these films was limited to cues and used as background music. But in 1939, Gene Autry s Mexicali Rose stood out from the rest. It was a musical Western and the title song became one of Gene s big records for Columbia. Others were to follow, with commercially successful film title songs like South of the Border, Under Fiesta Stars, Gaucho Serenade and Rancho Grande. There were still more films with titles that were easy for audiences to associate with hit songs, e.g. In Old Monterey and Down Mexico Way. Only two of Gene Autry s feature films were in color, but it s significant that one of those was The Big Sombrero. Both film studios and record companies were aware of the large potential audience below the border, and they were eager to play to that audience. At the same time, Latin music was becoming very popular in the U.S., as were musical comedy films with Latin settings, albeit urban rather than rural. Xavier Cugat, Artie Shaw, Guy Lombardo and other big bands included Latin tunes in their repertoires with great success. So the time was right for musical Westerns set in Mexico, and Gene Autry led the way! Gene recorded a number of border songs for Columbia. He sang those and others on his radio show and in his films, so he left us much more music to enjoy than any other singing cowboy. That made the choice of a theme for this latest Gene Autry CD an easy one; there was plenty of great music to choose from. And Gene s remarkably good Spanish accent lent authenticity to his renditions.