Word: buenas
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DIED. RUBEN GONZALEZ, 84, Cuban pianist who rose to international fame as a member of the Buena Vista Social Club band; of respiratory and kidney failure; in Havana. With a gutsy and playful musical style, he was a pioneer of the mambo and the cha-cha. But it wasn't until 1996, at age 77, after his only piano had been destroyed by woodworms, that he was invited to join a multi-generational group of Cuban musicians, whose Buena Vista Social Club album won a Grammy, sold some 8 million copies and was the subject of an Oscar-nominated film...
DIED. RUBéN GONZÁLEZ, 84, pianist and patriarch of Cuba's music scene who found late-life stardom after his appearance on the Grammy Award-winning 1997 album Buena Vista Social Club and in the subsequent documentary; in Havana. González, who was rediscovered by guitarist Ry Cooder, was initially nervous about playing on the album: he suffered from arthritis and didn't have a piano (his was ruined by termites). But he welcomed the attention and happily began performing again. "If I can't take a piano with me to heaven," he said...
...prime. Well known during the 1920s, '30s and '40s, the golden age of Cuban son music, Segundo saw his traditional balladeering trail into obscurity, and he spent nearly two decades as a roller in the H. Upmann cigar factory in Havana. Then, in his late 80s, he formed the Buena Vista Social Club with a gaggle of other aging all-stars. The eponymous album and motion picture reintroduced much of the world to Cuban music and made the charismatic Segundo perhaps the most recognizable beardless Cuban alive. The gregarious nonagenarian reveled in his stardom: he played for the Pope, surrounded...
Died. Compay Segundo, 95, troubadour and godfather of traditional Cuban music who achieved late-life fame for his appearance on the Grammy Award-winning 1997 album Buena Vista Social Club and in a starring role in the subsequent documentary; in Havana. The album reintroduced the world to Segundo and other aging, all-but-forgotten masters of son, a style that layers Spanish melodies over African rhythms. Segundo, with his ever present cigar and Panama hat, played around the world and recorded two more albums. "The flowers of life come to everyone," he said. "Mine arrived after...
...seen him once before that summer of 1999, several months earlier. He had stood 12 feet tall, on a movie screen in San Francisco, taking his unlikely star turn as himself in Wim Wender's documentary about the Buena Vista Social Club, the band that a year earlier had won Segundo a Grammy and generally elevated him and a handful of his compatriots from obscure relics of Cuba's golden age to international superstars, icons of the newly rediscovered grace and warmth behind the iron veil of the Cuban embargo...