Word: compaying
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...COMPAY SEGUNDO, 95, died in his professional 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...
...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...
...Segundo came to see us on occasion because our opening band was often Los Nietos de Compay Segundo (The Grandsons of Compay Segundo). He even sat in with our group, his baritone a graveled wonder as it worked through the peasant songs he was so famous for. But he was not there to dote on his grandkids or to pass stern lessons to the next generation of musician, as would have been his right. Rather, he was there to have a good time. He drank well and laughed often, smoked constantly and chatted up everyone who came to wish...
...saddened and actually quite surprised. Yes, he was 95. And I don't doubt his claim that he had been smoking cigars since 1912. And in the 1980's, many casual music observers thought he was already dead, so completely had the world forgotten him. But now Compay Segundo was clearly on a roll: adored by his people, wealthy beyond reckoning in pesos, and still performing the music he loved...
...brutal crackdown on dissidents and independent journalists. Hijacked crop dusters and military planes are landing with increased frequency at the airport in Key West. In April, three young men who had hijacked an aging ferryboat in Havana Bay were executed by firing squad. This week, just days after Compay Segundo's death, two separate boat hijackings left 3 dead and a 10-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the head. On Wednesday, Celia Cruz, the Cuban-born "Queen of Salsa" whom Castro barred from ever returning to Cuba, died in exile in New Jersey...