Tuesday, 6 September 2011

Ruben Gonzales

Not nearly enough footage of this wonderful old man (now dead) playing for the so absolutely cute little ballet girls in a gymnasium in Havana, but you get a flavour.

The bloke in a red beret in the film jumped in just to make a few bucks, so most of the clips are now un-embedable - by request. Whose fucking request?

Ruben Gonzales was pulled out of obscurity by the American musical hero, Ry Cooder, and overcame arthritis in both hands to be rediscovered as a Cuban genius, and he (Mr Cooder) was fined hundreds of thousands of dollars for his efforts.

At least the old men of the original Buena Vista Social Club made a few bucks in their old age, and even made it to Carnegie Hall... which is when the bloke in the red beret realised he could make his fortune out of them.

Dear old Ruben would turn up to Ry Cooder's film venue at dawn, where a piano was awaiting him - hours before required - and sit there playing it like he hadn't played since the 1940s.

His wooden-frame piano having rotted away in the tropical damp years before, and the onset of arthritis meant that - so he believed - his playing days were over.

Dear old Ry Cooder knew better than that.



5 comments:

  1. Beautiful...absolutely beautiful Tom...I particularly love the clip of the little girls enjoying him play.

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  2. Me and H.I. have been moved to tears when we have heard of the deaths of these old men. Somehow, they are so human and child-like (like those lovely girls) that millions of people around the world actually felt as thought they knew them. Silly, I know, but it shows how the efforts of one or two people can go so far to help expose the beauty and talent of others who have been isolated from the world, simply because of the ambitions of a little dictator, nomatter how honorable the dictator's intentions were.

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  3. Very nice post, Tom. It is a very dreary day here and it is nice to listen to this music.

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  4. I really must replay my BVSC CD. That combination of piano and trumpet is quite wonderful. The original CD contained all the 'words', and we actually used to sing-along. They would have been horrified.

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  5. "y al Buenavista le canto pues me liena de alegria, y por eso."
    Luis Frank.
    Fabulous! I love this music but I can't listen to it and sit still, I've got to be up and jigging about. I've some old Radio Cuba recordings, very simple and lovely.

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