Ibrahim Ferrer

Of all the larger-than-life personalities that make up the Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer seemed the least likely to emerge as an international superstar. Mild-mannered and gentle-voiced, Ferrer had sung with many legendary bands in Cuba but had never become a star in his own right. On his trips outside of Cuba in 1996 with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and as the featured vocalist with Rubén González, Ferrer, with his wiry frame and ever-present Kangol cap, seemed essentially a collaborative talent – a foil for the many other colourful characters in these groups. Yet within three years of these first international appearances, Ferrer was packing out the world’s great venues – Royal Albert Hall, the Sydney Opera House, the Orchard Hall in Tokyo and receiving rapturous ovations from audiences for whom he had become the embodiment – the heart and soul – of the multimillion-selling Buena Vista phenomenon. One incident illustrates just how global a celebrity Ibrahim Ferrer has become. Two years ago, he was in the midst of a hugely successful tour of Japan with fellow Buena Vistas, Rubén González and Omara Portuondo ? they had sold out ten, 10,000 seat auditoriums. Ferrer wanted to buy a kimono, so one day he went for a walk through downtown Tokyo. The result was as unexpected as it was revealing – traffic came to a virtual standstill as awe-struck businessmen and besuited office workers approached and asked, nervously, for his autograph. It was a reaction you would have expected for an American pop icon, not a septuagenarian Cuban singer. Given the mythic quality of his life story, perhaps it was inevitable that Ferrer would become a global star. He was born in 1927, near Santiago in eastern Cuba, the part of the island where most of Cuba’s musical genres were born such as traditional son, the elegant European -influenced danzon, and so on. The circumstances of his birth reflect the mixture of struggle and joy that has marked his life: his mother went into labour with him at a social club dance. During childhood, he nearly died of tetanus and although he had nurtured hopes of becoming a doctor, on his mother’s death, when he was twelve years old, Ferrer had to take to the streets, selling sweets and popcorn in order to survive. One year later, he and his cousin started a group, Los Jóvenes del Son (The Young Men of Son), to play neighbourhood parties. At their first performance he earned one peso fifty – ‘and I felt like a millionaire!’ he says. He went on to sing in various local bands ? Conjunto Sorpresa, Conjunto Wilson and Pacho Alonso’s Maravilla de Beltran. In 1955, he had a hit record, ‘El platanar de Bartolo’ (Bartolo’s Banana Field), with Orquesta Chepín-Chóven, Santiago’s top group. This brought him some local fame but the song was released into the wider world without his name on it. ‘I would have been thrilled if my name had become known,’ he says, ‘but it never happened. Still, at least I had the satisfaction of knowing the tune was popular. Moving to Havana in 1957, he worked with the legendary Orquesta Ritmo Oriental and the great Beny Moré – perhaps the most important Cuban musician of the twentieth century – before reuniting with Pacho Alonso’s group who had also relocated to Havana, calling themselves Los Bocucos, after a drum used in Santiago carnivals. In all of these incarnations, Ferrer was employed primarily to sing guarachas, sones and other up-tempo numbers. Yet all the time his heart belonged to that classic, slow-burning ballad form, the bolero. ‘But I was always told that I was not good enough,’ he says, ‘that my voice was only suited to dance songs.’ Throughout his career, Ferrer believed he was dogged by a mixture of bad luck and lack of faith from other musicians. ‘With Pacho Alonso and Beny Moré, I felt I was doing something important, but I was always left in the shadows. I felt loved by the audience, but not by my colleagues.’ Songs that had been tailor-made for him were given to other singers. When he finally got to sing a winning bolero, ‘Santa Cecilia’, the piano arrangements mysteriously disappeared. And when a song of his, ‘La historia de Benetín’, became popular on television, Ferrer’s fellow band members told him the song was rubbish. He felt so humiliated he vowed never to sing the song again. ‘That disappointment marked me forever. After that I lost my enthusiasm for music.’ He came even to believe that there was a kind of curse on him. Yet life still produced highs. In 1962, Los Bocucos toured the socialist world, playing at the French Communist Party’s ‘Fête de l’Humanité’ in Paris, at the Verno Exhibition in Prague and, finally, at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. Ferrer had his photograph taken with two hundred Russian sailors in the port of Talinn, and he even sat next to Soviet premier Nikita Khruschev at a dinner during the height of the Cuban missile crisis. ‘He was a nice man,’ says Ferrer. ‘Small, with a very shiny bald head’. But we had been on tour for two months, and had not heard any news. So, we had no idea what was going on.’ Ferrer remained with Los Bocucos until his retirement in 1991. On leaving the music business, his principle feeling was one of relief, even though he was now back on the streets selling lottery tickets and shining shoes to make ends meet. Then, one afternoon seven years ago, at the Buena Vista sessions, Ry Cooder asked if there was a softer voice that could be found for the bolero. Juan de Marcos González, the musical director of Sierra Maestra and A & R consultant of the Buena Vista sessions, immediately thought of Ibrahim and came to his house to ask him to do a recording. At first, ‘I wasn’t interested,’ says Ferrer. ‘I had suffered a lot through music. I felt… I don’t know how to say it… disappointed by my life in music. But he went on until I agreed to record a number with him. I told him I could not go anywhere without taking a bath. He said, “No, no, they are doing the recording now!” So, I left the shoes I was shining, and went with him to Egrem Studios. ‘When I arrived at the recording studio, I found Rubén González there with Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa, Barbarito Torres, ‘Guajiro’ Mirabal… people I had looked up to all my life. I started humming while Rubén González was improvising at the piano, and to my surprise I found I could follow him. Eliades Ochoa saw me and started to play the Faustino Oramas tune that I sing called ‘Ay Candela’. Ry Cooder and Nick Gold were in the control room. I didn’t know who they were, but it seemed they liked my voice. And when I sang the bolero ‘Dos gardenias’, they really noticed me. I still can’t believe that I went there to record one number, and I ended up singing almost all of them. And I had been chosen as a bolero singer!’ Ferrer sang on the Grammy-nominated ‘Afro-Cuban All Stars’ and on the Grammy-winning ‘Buena Vista Social Club™’, which has gone on to sell 5 million copies. Meanwhile, his subsequent solo album ‘Buena Vista Social Club™ presents Ibrahim Ferrer’ has sold 1.5 million copies. Produced by Ry Cooder, it demonstrated his formidable skills as a rhythmic improviser and, perhaps even more importantly, his definitive mastery of the bolero - most notably in ‘Silencio’, the smouldering duet with Omara Portuondo.
montuno.com Ibrahim Ferrer Omara Portuondo Roberto Fonseca Manuel Galban Ale Siqueira Cachaito Lopez