HAVANA (Reuters) -
Its oldest stars died after a late burst
of international fame, but the show goes on for Cuba's
trademark Buena Vista Social Club band as it taps new blood to
keep touring.
The 13-piece band travels to Britain next week to perform
32 concerts from London to Liverpool and Edinburgh.
Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez will be playing the bass again and
Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal will be on trumpet. The survivors of
the original 1997 Grammy-winning recording that gave the band
its name and fame are now in their mid-70s.
The young addition to the group is lead singer Idania
Valdes, 26, who started as a chorus girl with Buena Vista six
years ago and played keyboard for an off-shoot band of the late
Ibrahim Ferrer.
Barbarito Torres, 52, who plays the laud, an instrument
like a lute, and timbal percussionist Amadito Valdes, 62, the
"golden sticks" of Buena Vista, are still regular performers
who will join the tour.
"The most famous names in the Buena Vista project have died
but the band has become a trademark of Cuban music," said
Valdes, creator of a unique style of playing the timbales, a
Cuban instrument made famous by Puerto Rican Tito Puentes.
Since the 2003 death of Buena Vista's elder-statesman
singer Compay Segundo at the age of 95, another three of its
original line-up have passed away: pianist Ruben Gonzalez,
singer Ibrahim Ferrer and vocalist and composer Pio Leyva.
Other members have gone their own way, such as guitarist
Eliades Ochoa, who tours Europe every year with his own band,
and Buena Vista diva and ballad singer Omara Portuondo, who
last played with the original band members in Mexico in 2006.
Portuondo will sing at Kenwood House on London's Hampstead
Heath in July with her own band.
Many of the musicians were brought out of retirement during
a legendary recording session in March 1997 produced in Havana
by U.S. guitarist Ry Cooder, though the idea was the brainchild
of world music label owner Nick Gold of Britain.
The mambo, cha cha cha and bolero music they played struck
a chord of nostalgia for the golden age of Cuban music mirrored
in the crumbling old buildings and vintage American cars still
plying the streets of Havana.
The Buena Vista recording sold one million copies within a
year and reached new audiences through the documentary by
German film-maker Wim Wenders two years later. To date seven
million copies have been sold, making it the biggest selling
world music disc ever.
Cuban music had been cut off by the Cold War from its
natural market in the United States and the Grammy-winning
Buena Vista recaptured Americas audiences and won new listeners
as far away as Iceland and New Zealand, Valdes said.
"It broke all records for the sale of Cuban music and
became a trademark of Cuba," said Valdes, tapping on his
timbales, two small drums on a stand with a cowbell.
Buena Vista's Cuban founder, Juan de Marcos Gonzalez, the
man who gathered together the original musicians, continues to
promote faces through his own band Afro-Cuban All Stars.
(Editing by Anthony Boadle and Vicki Allen)
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