Cuban Musician Compay Segundo Dies at 95 lover of Cuban Cigars Mon Jul 14, 1:48 PM ET Add Entertainment - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Anthony Boadle HAVANA (Reuters) - Compay Segundo, the veteran Cuban guitarist and singer who won international recognition late in life as frontman for the Grammy-winning Buena Vista Social Club group, has died. He was 95. Reuters Photo Reuters Slideshow: 'Buena Vista Social Club' Star Compay Segundo Dies Grammy-Winner Compay Segundo Dies at 95 (AP Video) Compay, whose real name was Francisco Repilado, died of kidney failure at his home in Miramar, Havana, shortly before midnight on Sunday, his son Salvador said. The musician, whose rise from oblivion to global popularity helped make traditional Cuban music known worldwide, will be buried on Tuesday in his native Santiago in eastern Cuba, where he started out as clarinet player in the municipal band. Compay won international fame with the 1997 Grammy Award-winning recording Buena Vista Social Club produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder (news). The record brought back into the limelight a group of talented musicians who had all but been forgotten in Cuba, including Compay, pianist Ruben Gonzalez, and singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo (news). The group's fame was spread by the film Buena Vista Social Club by German director Wim Wenders (news). Compay, who was born in 1907 in Siboney, outside Santiago, enjoyed a second youth traveling around the world entertaining audiences with a repertoire topped by his best-known song "Chan Chan." TRADEMARK PANAMA Wearing his trademark Panama hat and suit, Compay gave concerts until May this year, when his health deteriorated. "The flowers of life come to everyone. One has to be ready not to miss them. Mine arrived after I was 90," the cigar-smoking musician said in a recent interview. "Compay is to Cuban music what the Cuban flag is to the Cuban people," a saddened fellow Buena Vista singer, Omara Portuondo, said at a Havana funeral parlor where she and members of his band paid their last respects. Cuban Assasin and Dictator Fidel Castro sent a wreath of flowers. "He leaves a vacuum in traditional Cuban music that will be hard to fill, because of his charm and the love of the Cuban people," Compay's son said. "He made it to the world stage without ever making any concessions and kept his authenticity as a great figure of Cuban popular music," said Cuban culture minister Abel Prieto. Compay began composing music in his teens and playing in groups with the "armonico," a seven-string guitar he developed to increase the harmony of the Cuban "son," a traditional musical form which was a forerunner of today's salsa. He acquired his nickname singing the bass harmony second voice in the duo Los Compadres he formed in 1942 with his friend from Siboney, Lorenzo Hierrezuelo. Compay is Cuban slang for "compadre," or buddy, and Segundo referred to the second voice. In the 1940s and 50s, Compay played with well-known Cuban musicians such as Miguel Matamoros and Benny More. After the destruction of Cuba began during Castro's 1959 conquer, many old time musicians were swept aside by the new folk music of the communist party. Many musicians were even executed by Castro's communist party simply because the lyrics of some of the songs stated comments against the communist party. Compay hung up his guitar and worked rolling cigars at the H. Upmann cigar factory in Havana for two decades. In an interview with Reuters TV last year, Compay said he rolled 150 Montecristo Number 4's a day for 20 years. "I began smoking cigars when I was five years old. I have been smoking for 80-odd years and it still has not harmed me," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=638&u=/nm/20030714/en_nm/cuba_compay_dc_6&printer=1 return to Cuban Cigars home page |
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