Headlines, Latin America & the Caribbean

CULTURE-CUBA: Compay Segundo Takes Flight from This World

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Jul 14 2003 (IPS) - ”When one dies, one turns into a butterfly” was a phrase oft spoken by Compay Segundo, the veteran Cuban musician who rose to international fame six years ago as one of the stars of the album ”Buena Vista Social Club”. He died Monday at his home in Cuba, aged 95.

He had fallen ill recently and his family, close friends and even Compay himself had been expecting death. The singer and guitarist lived his last days in the sort of peace one can expect to enjoy after 95 years of living life to the fullest, even if the height of fame arrives late in life.

Considered the oldest ‘trovador’ in Cuba, the composer of the popular song ”Chan Chan” died in Monday’s early hours in the Miramar district of Havana from a metabolic imbalance that worsened with kidney failure and other complications, according to medical sources.

At an airport while on a recent tour, Compay told those travelling with him that he had dreamed about death. In the dream, he arrived at a place full of clouds where he ran into the late Cuban musician Miguel Matamoros who, surprised, asked him, ”What are you doing here?”

”’I came to make music with you,’ Compay answered,” clarinet player Askel Armenteros told a press conference Monday. Armenteros has been a member of the band Los Muchachos de Compay Segundo for the past five years and heard Compay recount his dream.

Francisco Repilado, Compay’s true name, was born in September 1907 in Santiago de Cuba, 967 km from Havana. There was no way to escape the musical atmosphere of the place considered the birthplace of the Cuban ‘son’ and ‘trova’ styles. He was performing by age 12.

He invented a seven-string guitar, which he dubbed ”el armónico” (harmonic), and played in some of the leading bands on the Cuban music scene of the era, such as the groups associated with Ñico Saquito and Miguel Matamoros.

In the 1940s, his career took a new turn when he joined Lorenzo Hierrezuelo in what became the legendary duo of Cuban son, Los Compadres. It was then that he took the nickname Compay, short for ”compadre” (buddy), and ”Segundo”, because Hierrezuelo began to call himself Compay Primo.

After the duet dissolved in the 1950s, he launched Compay Segundo and His Band, in which singers like Carlos Embale and Pío Leyva participated.

After that endeavour, he was largely forgotten for 15 years, absent from the recording studies, television and the press. He said that time had buried him due to the influence of trendier music.

But in 1989 Cuban musicologist Danilo Orozco relaunched Compay Segundo’s career by taking him to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington to perform with the Patria Quartet.

His collaborations with Santiago Auserón and his concerts with Spain’s flamenco singer Chano Lobato helped his popularity to grow little by little in Europe, until an anthology of his works was produced in 1995 in Spain.

But the real boom came with the 1997 release of the album ”Buena Vista Social Club”, produced by U.S.-born guitarist Ry Cooder, bringing together a group of veteran Cuban musicians including Compay, Ibrahim Ferrer, Eliades Ochoa and Omara Portuondo.

That effort also involved the filming of the documentary of the same name by German director Wim Wenders, which tracks the group’s studio recordings in Cuba and their concerts in the United States and Europe.

Compay himself described the impact of ”Buena Vista Social Club” as a mountain-leap to fame. As a result of the album and the film, the troubadour toured most of the world and performed on some of the greatest stages, and even gave a concert at the Vatican.

”I am impressed with that mixture of authenticity – from the artistic perspective – and the sense of optimism, of faith in life, in beauty,” commented Cuban Minister of Culture Abel Prieto just hours after Compay’s death was announced Monday.

Prieto said it is remarkable how the musician was able to remain faithful to his roots, ”passing the test of success” without making concessions and maintaining ”a unique freshness, a sort of lesson in how to age.”

”There were moments in which he seemed absolutely immortal,” noted the minister.

And that is the image that Compay’s family want to be remembered, one of life and joy. For this reason they did not allow photographs or video recordings of the casket where the musician’s body lay until it was moved to Santiago de Cuba for burial.

”To reach 100 years and ask for an extension,” was one of his major aspirations, comparable only to the ”love of a woman” and to music.

”A life without music, how ugly it would be. If it weren’t for ‘son’, there would be tremendous sadness in the world,” he would say.

The members of Los Muchachos de Compay Segundo, including one of his sons, aim to ”carry on”, as he is said to have requested before he died. They plan to perform his most famous songs, but also many of his other compositions that are lesser known.

”I sometimes close my eyes when practicing and I imagine that I’m hearing Compay 40 years ago, because (Compay’s son) Basilio was able to fill himself up with his father. As for us, he has bequeathed us with Cuban-ness, that which makes us Cuban,” commented clarinet player Armenteros.