Buena Vista Social Club (CD - 1997)

Buena Vista Social Club: Compay Segundo (vocals, guitar, congas); Eliades Ochoa (vocals, guitar); Ibrahim Ferrer (vocals, bongos, clave); Ry Cooder (acoustic & electric slide guitars, guitar, oud, bolon, mbira, percussion); Ruben Gonzalez (piano).

Additional personnel includes: Juan de Marcos Gonzalez (conductor, guiro, background vocals); Julio Alberto Fernandez (vocals, maracas); Manuel "Puntillita" Licea (vocals, congas); Omara Portuondo (vocals); Benito Suarez Magana (guitar); Barbarito Torres (laoud); Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal (trumpet); Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, Salvador Repilado Labrada (bass); Joachim Cooder (drums, udu drum, dumbeck, conga); Alberto "Virgillo" Valdes (maracas, background vocals).

Recorded at Egrem Studios, Havana, Cuba, March, 1996. Includes liner notes by Nick Gold and Nigel Williamson.

BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB won the 1998 Grammy Award for Best Tropical Latin Performance.

Personnel: Ry Cooder (vocals, guitar, mandolin); Compay Segundo (vocals, guitar, congas, background vocals); Eliades Ochoa (vocals, guitar); Julio Fernandez (vocals, maracas); Ibrahim Ferrer, Manuel "Puntillita" Licea (vocals, background vocals); Omara Portuondo (vocals); Benito Suárez Magana (guitar); Manuel "El Guajiro" Mirabal (trumpet); Rubén González (piano); Lázaro Villa (congas, guiro); Carlos González (bongos, cowbells); Juan de Marcos González (guiro, background vocals); Alberto Valdés (maracas); Julienne Oviedo Sánchez (timbales); Luis Barzaga (background vocals).

Audio Mixer: Jerry Boys.

Liner Note Author: Ry Cooder.

Recording information: EGREM Studios, Havana, Cuba (03/1996); Ocean Way Studios, Hollywood, CA (03/1996).

Photographer: Susan Titelman.

Translators: Francesca Clarke; Jenny Adlington.

Unknown Contributor Roles: Maria Rodriguez; Alberto Valdés; Nigel Williamson.

This album is named after a members-only club that was opened in Havana in pre-Castro times, a period of unbelievable musical activity in Cuba. While bandleader Desi Arnaz became a huge hit in the States, several equally talented musicians never saw success outside their native country, and have had nothing but their music to sustain them during the Castro reign. Ry Cooder went to Cuba to record a musical documentary of these performers. Many of the musicians on this album have been playing for more than a half century, and they sing and play with an obvious love for the material. Cooder could have recorded these songs without paying the musicians a cent; one can imagine them jumping up and grabbing for their instruments at the slightest opportunity, just to play. Most of the songs are a real treasure, traversing a lot of ground in Cuba's musical history. There's the opening tune, "Chan Chan," a composition by 89-year-old Compay Segundo, who was a bandleader in the '50s; the cover of the early-'50s tune "De Camino a la Verada," sung by the 72-year-old composer Ibrahim Ferrer, who interrupted his daily walk through Havana just long enough to record; or the amazing piano playing on "Pablo Nuevo" by 77-year-old Rubén González, who has a unique style that blends jazz, mambo, and a certain amount of playfulness. All of these songs were recorded live -- some of them in the musicians' small apartments -- and the sound is incredibly deep and rich, something that would have been lost in digital recording and overdubbing. Cooder brought just the right amount of reverence to this material, and it shows in his production, playing, and detailed liner notes. If you get one album of Cuban music, this should be the one. ~ Steve McMullen

That Ry Cooder, you've got to keep an eye on him every minute, or he jumps into another cross-cultural collaboration. In the wake of his landmark recordings TALKING TIMBUKTU with Ali Farka Toure and A MEETING BY THE RIVER with V.M. Bhatt comes BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, essentially a supergroup of traditional Cuban musicians with the addition of international agitator Cooder. Somehow, Cooder always finds just the right space to slide his sinuous slide guitar into, so that it works in almost any context. Here, amidst the multi-layered percussion, piano and Cuban guitar rhythms, Cooder's slide simultaneously finds a home and eggs the ensemble on. The natural beauty of the Cuban tonal and rhythmic palette is the real star of BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, evoking both a sense of mystery and a feeling of intense emotional satisfaction.

That Ry Cooder, you've got to keep an eye on him every minute, or he jumps into another cross-cultural collaboration. In the wake of his landmark recordings TALKING TIMBUKTU with Ali Farka Toure and A MEETING BY THE RIVER with V.M. Bhatt comes BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, essentially a supergroup of traditional Cuban musicians with the addition of international agitator Cooder. Somehow, Cooder always finds just the right space to slide in with his sinuous slide guitar, so that it works in almost any context. Here, amidst the multi-layered percussion, piano, and Cuban guitar rhythms, Cooder's slide simultaneously finds a home and spurs the ensemble on. The natural beauty of the Cuban tonal and rhythmic palette is the real star of BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB, evoking both a sense of mystery and a feeling of intense emotional satisfaction. minimize