Nonesuch
1998
Lo Mejor De La Vida
About This Album
90-year-old sonero Maximo Francisco Repilado Munoz Compay Segundo, nicknamed "Pancho," is known for his many years of singing with his own group, Los Compadres, and Miguel Matamoros (also working as a clarinetist). Here he is titled strictly a "backing" vocalist, but he is much more than that, flexibly blending in higher and lower tones with various "lead" singers as Hugo Garzon, Pio Leyva, Felix Valoy, Silvio Rodriguez, Martirio, Omara Portuondo, son Basilio Repilado, and a host of percussionists, acoustic bassists and small percussionists. Segundo also plays a combination guitar/tres called the Armonico, a stringed instrument of his own invention, which is frequently heard atonally strumming as minor spice to the improvisations of others. The vocal-guitar-bass-conga (or bongo) format is exploited in midtempo rhythms throughout these 14 tracks, several of them romance songs. "Tu querias jugar" is the newest "son" song, written by Segundo, a tale of love in vain for a wicked woman, with Garzon's deep lead and the great Elpidio Chappotin's plaintive muted trumpet. The most regret-filled are a lament for one far away with Martirio and Valoy on the weepy bolero "Es mejor vivir asi" and a pining for (beautiful) "Linda Graciela" with young Repilado and trombonist Enrique Bergery.
Track List (try tracks 2,8,10 and 11)

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