Sony/Bmg Int'l
1995
Rodriguez
About This Album
When Ry Cooder went to Cuba in 1996 in search of the "deeply funky" rhythms the island had been famous for at mid-century -- danzón, bolero, rhumba, son -- the resulting album, The Buena Vista Social Club, made Grammy-winning, arena-packing superstars of its octogenarian musicians, and cleared the way to international airplay and success for dozens of others. And so it came to pass that northern Europeans flocked to salsa classes, that bartenders in the Midwest began serving up mojitos, that Celia Cruz received a queen's burial; yet the international reputation of the unassuming man who is arguably the island's most influential living recording artist failed to profit much at all from these high years of Cubanismo.

Silvio Rodriguez plays the guitar and sings with the voice of one of its own high strings, pulled perhaps a little tight. Melancholy, sardonic, tender or bemused, his is an organic music, starting with a spare, oddly syncopated bassline, gaining chords and momentum with each go-round. It's a ballad that arrives half-remembered from a bustling coffee house, hemmed in by a crowd of would-be poets, intellectuals, and revolutionaries. You sing along before you even know the words.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8)

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