Self-Titled Summer | Buena Vista Social Club (1997, Cuba)

Our next Self-Titled Summer spotlight is on number 461 on The List, submitted by dharmadischarge. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Point of origin(s): In 1996, a Havana-based project headed by British music producer and World Circuit record label executive Nick Gold was meant to result in a collaboration between Cuban and African musicians, plus American guitarist Ry Cooder.⁽¹⁾ In the end, the musicians from Africa were unable to make it to Havana, and instead three albums of Cuban music resulted from the ensemble of mostly local musicians, all released the following year: [em]A Toda Cuba le Gusta[/em], the first album under the collective name Afro-Cuban All Stars (led by Juan de Marcos González); Introducing… Rubén González, highlighting the ensemble’s fantastic piano player; and, the album we look at here, the first and only studio album under the collective name Buena Vista Social Club, named after the music venue in Havana that was popular in the 1940s. The lineups aren’t exactly the same across all three recordings, but on this album is: Luis Barzaga, Julio Alberto Fernández Colina, Ibrahim Ferrer, Carlos González, Juan de Marcos González, Rubén González, Manuel “Puntillita” Licea, Orlando “Cachaíto” López, Manuel “Guajiro” Mirabal, Eliades Ochoa, Omara Portuondo, Salvador Repilado Labrada, Julienne Oviedo Sánchez, Compay Segundo, Benito Suárez, Barbarito Torres, Alberto “Virgilio” Valdés, Lázaro Villa, and Ry Cooder and his son Joachim Cooder.
• Tasting notes: Son cubano, bolero, descarga, danzón, guajira, criolla, jazz, sunshine, and the biggest selling Cuban album ever.
• Standout track: The first track “Chan Chan” is such a great vibe-setter so I’ll go with that, but also “Pueblo Nuevo”, one of the tracks that is primarily Rubén González on piano. Oh and, given our series title here, the self-titled track.
• Where are they now?/RIP: While this is essentially the only studio album put out by the collective, the immediate, explosive success of this album made “Buena Vista Social Club” into essentially a brand name for the collective members who went on to release solo projects (indeed, the official website uses ^™ behind the name). But, as many of the musicians had already retired long before making this album and had been “in their prime” in the 1940s and 50s – one member, Compay Segundo, was just shy of his 90th birthday in the recording sessions! – it’s likely no surprise that at least a handful of the musicians have since left us, some not too long after the release of this album, including Licea in 2000, Segundo and R. González in 2003, Ferrer in 2005, and López in 2009.
  There’s a LOT to dig into around this collective and the overall impact/importance of this album on the world’s interest in Cuban and Latin American music. A good place to start might be Wim Wenders’ 1999 documentary of the same name.
• Websites: Band website, Wikipedia, documentary

Happy listening!

• Songlink: Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club
• Discogs: Buena Vista Social Club – Buena Vista Social Club

1. As a bonus Self-Titled Summer entry if you haven’t yet checked it out, we listened to Ry Cooder not too long ago in our spotlight on Taj Mahal’s s/t album. ↩︎

#1990s #BuenaVistaSocialClub #Cuba #CubanMusic #Havana #music #musicDiscovery #RyCooder #selftitled #sonCubano