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La Otra Mitad is a straight-ahead barroom dance band in the Mexican "norteņo" style, which blends polkas, waltzes, brassy horn charts and bright accordion riffs with Mexican song forms like the corrido and ranchera, as well as such modern additions as Columbian cumbia and even the occasional burst of rap. The band was formed by Mexican-American youths whose parents came to the Quad Cities area around Davenport, Iowa, and Moline, Illinois, in the 1930s and 1940s to work on the area's farms, the railroad, and in the Moline meat-packing plants.
Workers by day, the members of La Otra Mitad get together on weekends to provide entertainment for the large local Mexican-America community, and also pride themselves on their ability to adapt to other audiences, playing Italian, Jewish, or rock 'n' roll music for parties and family celebrations throughout the region. They are the true bar-band tradition, musicians who play not because they are self-involved artists, but because they like to see people dancing and having a good time.
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