Pepe Sánchez, born José Sánchez (Santiago de Cuba, 19 March 1856 – 3 January 1918), is known as the father of the
trova style and the creator of the Cuban bolero. He had some experience in
bufo, but had no formal training in music. With remarkable natural talent, he composed
numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost forever, though some two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples wrote them down. His first bolero,
Tristezas, is still remembered today. He also created advertisement jingles before the radio. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed him. The first, and one of the longest-lived, was
Sindo Garay, born Antonio Gumersindo Garay Garcia (Santiago de Cuba, 12 April 1867 – Havana, 17 July 1968). He was the most outstanding composer of trova songs, and his best have been sung and recorded many times.
Perla marina,
Adiós a La Habana,
Mujer bayamesa,
El huracán y la palma,
Guarina and many others are now part of Cuba's heritage. Garay was also musically illiterate – in fact, he only taught himself the
alphabet at 16 – but in his case not only were scores recorded by others, but there are recordings as well. In the 1890s Garay got involved in the
Cuban War of Independence, and decided a stay in
Hispaniola (
Haiti and
Dominican Republic) would be a good idea. It was, and he came back with a wife. Garay settled in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 joined
Rita Montaner and others to visit Paris, spending three months there singing his songs. He broadcast on radio, made recordings and survived into modern times. He used to say "Not many men have shaken hands with both
José Martí and
Fidel Castro!"
Carlos Puebla, whose life spanned the old and the new trova, told a good joke about him: "Sindo celebrated his 100th birthday several times – in fact, whenever he was short of money!" José 'Chicho' Ibáñez (
Corral Falso, 22 November 1875 – Havana, 18 May 1981) was the first trovador (that we know of) to specialize in the
son and also on guaguancós and
afrocuban rhythms from the abakuá. He played the
tres rather than the Spanish guitar, and developed his own technique for this Cuban guitar. During his extremely long career, Chicho sang and played the son in streets, plazas, cafés, nightclubs and other venues throughout Cuba. In the 1920s, when the
sextetos became popular, he was forced to sell his compositions to these larger groups and their composers in order to survive. His compositions include
Toma, mamá, que te manda tía,
Evaristo,
No te metas Caridad,
Ojalá (sones);
Yo era dichoso,
Al fin mujer (bolero-sones);
Qué más me pides,
La saya de Oyá (guaguancós). He worked throughout Cuba, and latterly a short film was made of him ('See also' below). The composer
Rosendo Ruiz (Santiago de Cuba, 1 March 1885 – Havana, 1 January 1983) was a trovador almost as long-lived as Ibáñez and Garay. He wrote the criolla
Mares y Arenas in 1911, the workers' anthem
Redención in 1917, the bolero
Confesión, the guajira
Junto al cañaveral and the
pregón-son
Se va el dulcerito. He was the author of a well-known guitar manual.
Manuel Corona (
Caibarién, 17 June 1880 – Havana 9 January 1950) started his career in a
red-light district of Havana. Originally a singer-guitarist, he became a prolific composer after his hand was damaged by a pimp's knife. It was a case of "She was a whore, and she had her man, but I loved her".
Alberto Villalón (Santiago de Cuba, 7 June 1882 – Havana 16 07 1955) advanced the trova guitar technique and had a hand in the birth of the son septetos. Garay, Ruiz, Villalón and Corona were known as
the four greats of the trova, but Ibáñez and the following trovadores should be regarded as of equally high stature. == The 20th century ==