Miriam Ramos, beyond the song

This year 2024 marks the 60th anniversary of the musical debut of Miriam Ramos (1946), the Havana native with white hair, very fine and exceptional. Perfection! Some time ago we talked in a Havana Radio studio precisely to "capture" some of those memories, and what could have become a much broader investigation was cut short for reasons beyond the control of this writer. 

Miriam transcended, especially, as an interpreter of songs, boleros, trova and, to a lesser extent, sones, the latter scattered in some productions such as Cantar la trova (Egrem, 2005) with Pancho Amat.

She is hardly spoken of as a guitarist or composer, but you only have to listen to her on Love me as if I were newto check the quality that her lyrics can reach. The artist treasures an extensive list of phonographic records, among them, You are with mewith Andrés Alén, a tribute to Bola de Nieve, which won the Cubadisco Grand Prize in 1999 and was awarded in the categories of Song, Recording, Photography and Design; and the triptych The Cuban songHe also received the Cubadisco Grand Prize and was nominated in 2013 for the Latin Grammy. 

That time we chose as the focus for the conversation two aspects that have weight in his professional life and have been, I believe, little analyzed: dramatic acting and the conduction of radio and television programs, in which he also dedicates himself, with the same passion as he does with musical interpretation.

From her childhood, she recognizes the influence that her maternal grandmother María Teresa Pascual, "addicted" to the CMBF (Radio Musical Nacional) radio station, had on her and her sister Margarita Ramos.

A few years later it is 1959 and Miriam is a teenager of 13; and the change of power in the country includes, of course, a vortex of laws and popular demonstrations: the "illusion" had arrived. In the early sixties, the Cuban Institute of Radio Broadcasting (ICR) was created by a law published in the Official Gazette on June 6, 1962; and in several clubs and nightclubs in Havana, artists such as Doris de la Torre, Bobby Jiménez, Ela O'Farrill, Frank Domínguez, Frank Emilio, Elena Burke and Pablo Milanés.

Miriam Ramos and the No Hacenta Alas collective. Photo taken from Opina magazine.

Nineteen sixty-three was a decisive year for Miriam when, at the age of sixteen, she began her professional career by being admitted -after a rigorous examination- to the National Polyphonic Choir directed by maestro Serafín Pro. After almost a year, at the insistence of musicologist Odilio Urfé, Miriam gave her first recital at the Theater Hall of the National Museum of Fine Arts, an amazing moment that became memorable for those who witnessed the feat, such as singer-songwriter Marta Valdés, who wrote about that performance on May 11, 1964:

"Singing a whole program with Frank Emilio at the piano in one of those Fine Arts Monday where only rigor prevailed in the design of the programming, it would have been a challenge for anyone but the skinny girl with the black bush, who was willing to last as long as she could sing".

Journalist Orlando Quiroga added to the praise in an article entitled: A star is born! The new Miriam: The key to the seven gatesThe film's director, who highlighted the girl's talent and mastery of the filin, "surprisingly a difficult genre despite her early youth". 

The entry into television

The opportunity to appear on television came from musician and mentor Guillermo Barreto, accompanied by guitarist Froilán Amézaga and double bass player Papito Hernández. 

"I argued with the television directors, because they told me why being so young, instead of singing the songs of the prodigious decade, I wanted to do the filin and the best Cuban songs, and I paid dearly for that, because they took me out of television, they punished me for that, they simply stopped calling me", Miriam confessed to Carlos E. León in an interview with the filmmaker in an interview for The Cuban Gazette.

In mid-September 1967, Channel 4 television aired every Sunday the program In the meantimeThe program, half an hour with Silvio Rodríguez as the central figure, Eduardo Moya as director, script by Víctor Casaus and design by René Azcuy. It lasted seven months on screen before disappearing in April 1968 and giving way to other productions of the Centro de la Canción Protesta, broadcasted once a month and with the participation of Silvio, Pablo and Noel. 

There are many young people who now think that this has always existed, that television has always had the old trova and the new trova, but it hasn't. There is an important gap that is like a remnant of a classist and even racist mentality", says Miriam in the documentary. There is an important gap that is like the remnant of a classist and even racist mentality", Miriam tells in the documentary A woman, a song, a cityby Regino Oliver.

Miriam Ramos in her television debut.

In 1967 Miriam met Silvio at the Varadero International Festival with Bola de Nieve, and as the Nueva Trova Movement was gaining momentum, she took on the responsibility of bringing those songs to the media.

"One day Germán Pinelli talked to me about the use of the microphone, because television is a medium of intimacy, you can't assault people. He told me: 'you have the microphone here, don't talk to the cameraman, talk to the microphone'. And I see that mistake constantly, it is a problem of direction. As I was saying, the intimacy of television doesn't allow you to be handsy, to be false. I don't invent a Miriam Ramos, that seems to me a fraud, a swindle", she told me.

In 1969, musical programs were the highlight of television and those responsible for that success have a name: Manolo Rifat, Joaquín M. Condall, Amaury Pérez García, Eugenio Pedraza Ginori, among others. In several of those stellar programs, Miriam's small figure appeared with that voice that from the first moment catches you.

"I did a tremendous amount of television because the programming was completely live and rested on music. There was a musical program every day, completely different, and each one had his profile and his style. The program that old Amaury did had nothing to do with Rifat's program. With Pedraza Ginori [I did] Together at 9I've lost count, a thousand times! I'm in people's memory because of that, because television marks a lot and I have an easy image to remember because of the white hair. I'm a creative person - I'm not saying that out of vanity - and it motivates me a lot to see [someone] creating. The real cameramen are also creative and they would make proposals to the framing director; then I would see that on the monitor and start helping them and they loved it. I would come up with things because I would give myself to them.

Miriam Ramos in the program "Música y estrellas" directed by Manolo Rifat and accompanied by Frank Domínguez's group. Seventies.

"I really liked doing television, it is something demanding and I am very grateful to life for having met those directors and cameramen. The television I knew had a clockwork mechanism, with absolute precision, perfect organization. At that stage I met tremendous people like Adolfo Guzmán, Mario Romeu, Rafael Somavilla, Antonio Tony Taño... advising the programs, doing a real desk job. Here's an example: the theme Raining, I recorded it for a Rifat program and that arrangement was written by the maestro himself. Honestly, I was very well trained in that sense and I learned from the best," he says.

Camagüey journalist, broadcaster and researcher Josefa Bracero Torres remembers the Miriam of those decades:

"In the mid-seventies, Cuban television had several programs in Camagüey and at that time I was an announcer at Radio Cadena Agramonte and I was chosen to be the host of one of those programs. I remember that the directors were Eugenio Pedraza Ginori, Luis Figueredo Doncel and others. 

"Among the programs there is one that is done with Miriam Ramos in a place as romantic as the courtyard of the Ignacio Agramonte Museum, surrounded by tinajones and plants. She was very young when that happened: with a black hair that caught my attention, but in contrast, beautiful silver strands were beginning to emerge. I remember him for his youth and the way he sang, so sweet. Years went by and Miriam became one of the bastions of Cuban songwriting. I do not forget that Esther Borja, when she referred to the most outstanding people in the Cuban song, in the first place she highlighted Miriam Ramos; and we already know who Esther was".

In 1976 the Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry (Icaic) produced a curious animated musical titled The little fish without colorwhich for most critics turned out to be a hinge between a music video and a short film with a melodic base, where the theme supports and develops the plot. Written and directed by Mario Rivas, animation by Noel Lima and general production by Paco Pratts, The little fish without color is narrated through a song composed by Antonio González and performed by Miriam Ramos. 

A year later, the experience was repeated when, among more than a thousand proposals, a drawing by designer Martha Porro won the contest organized by the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television. Thus was born La CalabacitaThe song, which began airing in February of that year with lyrics by Alberto Falla, music by Mery Córdoba and Miriam's voice, was broadcast at eight o'clock in the evening in the homes of the island. 

At the end of the seventies, the vedette Nacha Guevara arrived in Cuba and here she found a considerable number of admirers, among them Miriam, who had the opportunity to probe a series of anguish with the Argentinean.

"The next day [Nacha Guevara] went to a Nueva Trova concert at the Karl Marx theater, he saw me and when it was all over he went to the dressing room and told me: 'You are from the stage, your work needs the stage, the lights, the curtain... The anti-show is not your show, that works for other people, not for you. You are from the stage.

By then, one of the most listened to topics was already MariposaPedro Luis Ferrer's composition that put Miriam on the Cuban radio charts for several months.

"...It is like the climax, because it is a striking phenomenon, at that time there were not the hit paradeBut I don't remember, since then, a song that has been on the radio as long as that song. It is that kind of song that catches on, especially because of that guitar that sounds so good, because it is Pedro Luis Ferrer who is there, accompanying me on that recording", says Miriam.

More than just dreaming

In the summer of '85 in Cuban homes, workplaces and even at the airport "clapping their hands" for the Mexican series Droplet of peopleand the expectation of Batey sundirected by Roberto Garriga, which "turns around the telenovela in our television" with high ratings and the performances of Susana Pérez, Verónica Lynn and Luisa María Jiménez.

In the last days of July of that same year, the media began to promote what would become one of the most watched series in the country: More than just dreaming. In May, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde published an extensive interview by journalist Neysa Ramón with the stars of the series. Two months later, in its edition of Tuesday, July 16, the media announced that after thirteen months of work, the debut of the series on the small screen would take place on Saturday the twentieth at 9:00 p.m. in prime time.

More than just dreaming was part of the extensive production of the Estudios Cinematográficos y de Televisión del Ministerio de las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias (FAR), created in 1961, and although it initially had nine chapters of approximately one hour in length, there is also a ninety-minute film version. Under the direction of Eduardo Moya worked, among others, Eliseo Altunaga, Roberto Díaz and Enrique de la Uz in the script; Ángel Alderete in the photography; music by Pablo Milanés and in the cast experienced actors such as Alberto Molina, Miguel Navarro; Martha del Rio; Manuel Porto; Luis Alberto García; Miriam Ramos; María Elena Escalona and Almenares Charity. They were joined by recent graduates of the Instituto Superior de Arte (ISA) and other very young people: Isabel Santos, Luis Alberto García, Patricio Wood, Rolando Brito, Beatriz Valdés and Enrique Álvarez. 

In the words of filmmaker Enrique Kike Álvarez published in OnCuba News, More than just dreaming became "a document, an audiovisual diagnosis of an era. As a series it was a reference and at the time a model of narration and production for Cuban television", and won the Caracol Award at the II Festival de Cine, Radio y Televisión; the VII Festival Nacional de la Radio y la Televisión de Santiago de Cuba Award (1986), as well as the Girasol Opina Popularity Award (1985). Of course, the series imposed a professional challenge for Miriam Ramos completely different from the theater where she had worked under the orders of Roberto Blanco in the staging of The days of warpart of José Martí's campaign diary.

Miriam Ramos in Algo más que soñar.

From this theatrical experience, another project was born, entitled Much more than twowith actor Jorge Hernández. What possible similarities are there between performing a musical play and hosting programs? Miriam answers:

"... it goes in a few people who really want to do it and who study it very carefully. Whether you do it one way or another, speaking or singing, they are details. The most important thing is to transmit something. Of course, the times are different: when you speak you have a certain path and in the song, for all the poetic licenses, it is altered. The song is basically a genre of synthesis and it is also an interesting exercise. When you sing, music is your accomplice and music without words also moves, it is a more closed code than language and makes you spend important moments to be a better human being. But, basically, it is the same thing: the intention to communicate". 

Radio Progreso opens its doors

In March 1986 the magazine Write to in its 80th issue publishes the results of the great Girasol survey of '85 and among the most popular programs appear More than just dreaming, Batey sun and Colorama. In August of that same year, Sara González performed her first recital at the García Lorca Hall of the Gran Teatro de La Habana and, among the guests, was Miriam Ramos, who had already begun to work as host of the program "The Great Theater of Havana". No wings are needed, on Radio Progreso. 

"The project caught my attention; I remember that it began directed by Jaime Almirall-Suárez, although the creator of the space was Ada Guzmán. I, as a listener, communicated with the program, praised certain things but never thought of working there. It was always an entertainment to listen to the radio, especially Progreso, a very eclectic station, where there is everything and for everyone. wings are not needed I was always attracted by the cultural proposal and the warm voice of Miriam Ramos: an excellent communicator and a person full of information and culture. Later I found out [how] the selection process went", said the producer Pepe Armas, who at that time did not yet have an official position at the radio station.

The first producers of wings are not needed were indeed Ada Guzmán, Jaime Almirall-Suárez and Antonio Orlando Rodríguez, and although Miriam already had ties with some of them it was necessary to convene a casting to choose the right voice for the program, as Pepe Armas states: "I am not going to tell you for professional ethics who participated in the call, but Miriam beat great and important actresses of Radio Progreso. When they saw the beauty she radiated and her communicability, she was immediately chosen. So, according to what I am told, the program was born in 1986".

wings are not needed began airing with an hour-long program, almost at the end of the night, then they subtracted fifteen minutes from it and sent it to Sunday night at seven o'clock in the evening. Production problems, recording commitments, among other obstacles, finally determined the closure of a program that had been on the air for more than two decades.

From Passion and prejudice a Pensamiento 

By 1992 the Cuban telenovela Passion and prejudice had captured the interest of Cuban television viewers. In the opinion of journalist Randol Peresalas, the work written by Eduardo Macias and directed together with Paco Anca and Julio Antonio Martinez, "meant a change of perspective towards the genre". Although the attraction of the telenovela in its one hundred and thirty chapters relied on the strength of the plot and the performances of Verónica Lynn, Corina Mestre, Tito Junco, Nancy González and Isabel Santos, among others, the soundtrack played its role. With lyrics by Noel Nicola and interpretation by Miriam Ramos, the theme song was played every night in the country.

Another project that benefited from his expertise was the television program Pensamientocreated by filmmaker Lizette Vila, who tells how the idea was born just after a presentation of the artist paying tribute to Bola de Nieve:

"That Miriam's concert was a bet beyond all the musical excellence: for her image, for her movement on stage, her wardrobe... I already came with the idea of the television program and I knew right there that I had to be that woman. Then, with the team, we called Julio Pulido and we got together with Uneac, the Ministry of Culture and the ICRT at a time more disadvantaged than the present and we launched the program under the auspices of the Hotel Nacional de Cuba. 

"In the program Miriam also had a thought: her virtuosity was not only as a performer, she also had a loquacity. Great artists of different manifestations passed through there, but there was always someone who interacted with her through dialogue, in an intimate tone, and all that tinged with music. It was an experience with great repercussion on television. 

"I had previously made a documentary film called Gracias a la vida and the soundtrack was provided by Juan Antonio Leyva, Magda Rosa Galbán, and she performed a capella the well-known song by Violeta Parra. 

"I had known her since the Havana Conservatory, when Isacc Nicola was its director, and we were united by many things. I always admired her tessitura, her way of expressing herself, her diction, perfect for me, which flowed from her creative motivation. Miriam is one of the great voices of Cuban music".

Miriam in the program Pensamiento.

While transmitting Pensamientoradio stations were broadcasting his latest record production entitled You are with me (homage to Snowball), produced by Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales (Egrem).

"You can't convince anyone if you don't speak from the truth: that's what interests me, through the song, the microphone, the screen, the radio. I do the Bola project with more than fifty years and I put all that at the service of the program, which had luxury guests such as the poets Carilda Oliver and Pablo Armando Fernández, César Portillo de la Luz or Eusebio Leal who called my attention because when we were making up I said to him: 'look, Eusebio, I'm going to ask you...', and he interrupted me saying: 'no, no, don't tell me, surprise me', and I thought he was a very handsome man, because you have to be sure of yourself to say that to an interviewer; of course, it was Eusebio Leal, tremendous people!", Miriam recalled. 

In 1999, the production team of Pensamiento won the Caracol award, granted by the Cinema, Radio and Television section of Uneac, for the best musical program on Cuban television.

The jazz corner

Reflecting the image of jazz in the work of composers of the so-called "cultured music", of its main cultivators, as well as promoting in the first instance the work of Cuban jazz musicians, are some of the principles defended by the radio program The jazz cornerbroadcast by CMBF and founded in 1969.

It was Miguel Ojeda, radio producer and for a time director of the program, who proposed Miriam to be part of that project. With a team that would later be led by Milagros Muñoz, at The jazz corner Miriam found another way to remain attached to a medium that is so dear to her as radio, especially in a station that has been present since her childhood.

From this world 

It was the aforementioned Pepe de Armas who, for several years, directed From this worlda program that on Sunday mornings, and on Habana Radio, connected Miriam's voice with the program's listeners. Journalist Ilse Bulit, general advisor of that station, analyzes:

"In interviews conducted and others read and heard, acting greats have opined that by observing their peers they 'load' personalities that they will use in some performance. The first time I saw Miriam was in '70, I think. She was close to the troupe of the founders of the Nueva Trova. With some of them she visited the newspaper Juventud Rebelde. In the lobby of the fifth floor they offered their songs. She remained observing us journalists with her penetrating gaze. And, besides her voice, her all-encompassing musical and general culture, in that power of observation is the actress we lost. She drills us with her gaze while intoxicating us with her interpretation. And I checked my curiosity. In her programs on Radio Progreso and Habana Radio, different programs, she acted. She incorporated differentiated characters".

Miriam Ramos in the theatrical show Mucho mas que dos.

Communication, Miriam Ramos maintains, is an act of love and is what she has unquestionably done throughout her career:

"That came to stay in my life. The radio is a proposal that I did not choose, it was love at first sight. The microphone is not a 'little animal' alien to my life, it has been with me for more than 60 years. But the radio microphone has another scope, another dimension. I landed, literally, in that field and I fell in love. Everyone talks about this 'bug' and it is very true: it is a powerful addiction that you can never give up. My second career? Yes, I never thought about it, but obviously yes."

Miriam Ramos' image has not appeared on Cuban television for a very long time, except for the occasional musical program. I do not know, for sure, if it has been a decision of the artist or a product of the apathy of some television directors. I too, like Marta Valdés, demand Miriam's presence in any media that can make her visible. Beyond good taste, it is a necessity, the urgency of a country with very few divas like her still alive.