Cuban musician Eliades Ochoa, known for being part of the Buena Vista Social Club and always wearing a Stetson hat, presents his new album “Guajiro”, a live tribute to son with the participation of Panamanian salsa singer Rubén Blades.
The composer, a stocky man who brilliantly renders son – popular music originating in eastern Cuba – recalls that he was born on an isolated ranch in the hills.
Ochoa recounts that her first experience was hearing her parents play music. His father played the tres, a guitar with three double strings, and one of his uncles played guitar with him.
“I was paying close attention to what they were doing, and I was already following them with maracas,” says this son of a farmer.
Later, he would host a weekly radio program on “Trinchera Agraria”, recording “Chan Chan” with Compe Segundo before becoming “Sonero” and becoming part of the legend of “Buena Vista”.
Ochoa lays claim to her roots in this new album. “I’m a Guajiro”, he sings from the second song.
The Buena Vista Social Club, the last active composer of the epic, says, “Guajiro does not mean that he is a cruel person.”
His grandparents immigrated to Cuba from the Basque Country of Spain in the late 19th century and the composer gives the mountains of his childhood a special luminosity, timeliness and luminosity.
This, thanks to an eight-string guitar he invented when he was young.
This unique instrument allows this troubadour to reproduce the sound of tres and classical guitars, which opens up his possibilities and enriches his music.
– Born to be a musician –
In this new album, “no song is the same as another, I needed to contribute something different (…) There are boleros, guarachas, mambo, merengue” and salsa, which also features Ruben Blades as a guest star. There is partnership. ,
The 1999 premiere of Wim Wenders’ documentary about the only two concerts outside Cuba by this group of elderly Cubans drawn from oblivion or retirement attracted a worldwide audience.
But Eliades Ochoa certainly turned the page at that stage. He has little contact with the survivors of the Buena Vista Social Club Orchestra, established between Havana and Madrid.
The composer says, “I want you Eliades Ochoa to keep the son, but without breaking down the fort to lead it to an understandable happiness, because that word ‘son’ is too strong.”
“I maintain it but always think that we must move forward, that the world is moving forward and no one can be left behind,” she is profuse.
The composer wants to “feel things different from what I’ve been doing for a long time, without losing tradition,” he reiterates.
Ochoa, whose black dress with a Stetson hat earned him the nickname “Cuban Johnny Cash”, would tour Europe, North America and Morocco throughout the year.
