Ven Conmigo. I love this album. It was one of my favorite andStill is one of my--I can't say "one of"--it still is a favoriteAlbum for me. 'Cause there was a little song on this album called "Bailas Tu Cumbia," which just really broke down the door for usAs far as getting us to airplay as far as cumbia was concernedThe second album we recorded for EMI Latin was... it was titledVen Conmigo. It was released in 1990. As Selena and the group LosDinos grew in popularity, I always insisted that we do a littleVariety of music. I've always felt that the buyer, the listenerWould enjoy this and they would not get bored, you know, hearingJust one particular style of music. So we always put a varietyRancheras, cumbias, ballads, a little pop. We always mixed it upThat album was really, really something for us too because it wasA, you know, a year later after our first release, which was in1990, I believe, and the photo shoot was something really specialAnd fun. And I'll let everybody in on a little story, that SelenaHad cut her hair and dyed it black black, you know, the nightBefore the photo shoot. And not too many people know this, butIf you really look, I think that's one of the reasons why it'sBlack and white, is that if you look really close behind her earYou can see a trace of black dye on her skin where we couldn'tGet it off. And if you really look close enough, you'll see itAnd that's one of the funny stories about the Ven Conmigo albumAnd "Ya Ves," I think that was probably my favoriteSong on the album. I remember even when they wrote itWhen we were practicing, I was thinking, "Man, this isCool." The words were cool. The melody was real goodI know that, you know, even "Aunque No Salga El Sol"Was another song that was played a lot on the radioOne song that really, really sticks out in my mind was a song that wasWritten by Johnny Herrera, a local writer from Corpus Christi, whoHad written a huge hit for Lisa Lopes, "Si Quieres Verme Llorar." InFact, from the story that I hear was this song, "Aunque No Salga ElSol," was supposed to be Lisa Lopes' follow-up song for the hit "Si Quieres Verme Llorar." For some reason thatWe don't know, they turned it down, and SelenaRecorded it. And it was--it's a beautiful balladLike the "Aunque No Salga El Sol" arrangement, for us, thatWas something new. It wasn't just basically like all theOther slow songs. You know, we used a lot more percussionAnd sequencing in that one. And that one came out real niceVen Conmigo was a song that really, really surprised me. I didn'tThink it was going to do anything. But it got tremendous airplayOn Ven Conmigo, finally we got an actual accordion playerAbie and Pete wrote the song. And I remember me and Abie droveUp to Poteet, and he showed it to David Lee Garza. And theyPracticed it a little bit, him and his dad was playing bajoSexto. His brother played the drums. And anyway, we ended upRecording it with David Lee, and that one came out real coolOut of all the duets that Selena done with Pete, I would haveTo say "Yo Te Amo" was my favorite one to do live, and I believeWe got a really great response. Not saying we didn't out ofThe other songs, but that song just had a lot of emotion to itThere was a period of time where we were doing a lot ofDuets between Selena and Pete. "Yo Te Amo" was one that wasA beautiful Tejano ranchera. It got a lot of airplay alsoI remember the "Yo Te Amo" song. That was when we were starting toGo into, you know, not the traditional chord progressions. YouKnow, we had a little bridge interlude thing in there. We wereChanging. I guess we were growing. Evolving, I guess. I don't knowFor anybody that just listened to the album for "Bailas Tu Cumbia,"They're missing out on a lot more, because on the album, a specialSong that comes to mind for me is "Enamorada De Ti," which is ourFirst attempt at doing something hip-hop or R&B. And the song reallyReally came out great. Originally, my father had talked to JoséBejar, and José had told him they were coming down to a show and theyWere bringing some major people from the pop market. So Dad toldSelena and told myself and said, "Look, this is a great opportunityFor you guys to impress these people and possibly land yourself anEnglish contract." So unfortunately for the guys who had to put itTogether, which was myself and Ricky Vela, we did it at a Motel 6It was snowing, and it was somewhere, I think, in AlbuquerqueI believe it was, New Mexico, in a Motel 6. We had to--and back thenWe didn't have, like, the fancy computers with all the sequencingWe actually had everything sequenced through a keyboard. And weHad eight keyboards. You had to bring all your keyboards downYour sound console, all your monitor systems. So we basically hadTo unload all our equipment into one of the rooms. All of our stageEquipment, all our--what we would call our back-line equipment--It would all have to come inside the room. And I remember we didn'tSleep. I worked on the song all night with Pete Asodio and withRicky Vela. The song that came about was "Enamorada De Ti," and weRecorded the song. And I remember sitting at the Tejano Music AwardsWith Pete Asodio. When Selena came out and she had her dancers andShe danced the song, it was one of the best moments of my lifeI mean, I'll never forget that. It was just--I was so high. I was out of the universe, I wasSo high from the emotion and just being able toOne song that comes to mind on this album was "No Quiero Saber". Originally my dad said, "Why don't y'all do 'Guantanamera'And do it like in a house version?" So I started working on itAnd dad said, "Man, the music sounds so great!" And he goes, "A.B., you've been working on your songwriting skills. Why don'tYou go ahead and write a song to the music?" And that's whatHappened. "No Quiero Saber" came to life and I'm glad dad guidedMe on that advice on the song, 'cause it's a real pretty song
