Musicologist Susan Thomas was at Leonardo Acosta's house, preparing her thesis on 19th century Cuban opera, when suddenly someone put on a record of Habana Abierta. The woman followed that sound at first with the tranquility of someone who understands Havana's busy life, but then another piece was played, and then another, and she could only ask about those creators.<\/p>\n
They told her that yes, it was Cuban music, but that the authors lived in Spain. The North American woman grabbed her things, went to the United States and in a few weeks she had a ticket to Madrid. Finding those singers was easy. They were already BMG artists, and a song by Andy Villal\u00f3n was playing in many souls: You love me<\/i>played by none other than Ana Bel\u00e9n.<\/p>\n
It was common for Alejandro Guti\u00e9rrez to sound his Rocason<\/i>So Susan Thomas had it as easy as going to look for Medina or Pepe Del Valle, those would be the characters.<\/p>\n
Susan, as a profound researcher, a woman who loves Cuban music, a strong woman and, let's say it once and for all, a persistent woman close to stubborn, managed to meet with the artists. She was talking with one and another, and the answers were satisfying the curiosity of an American who jumped from Eduardo Sanchez de Fuentes, Jose White and Nicolas Ruiz Espadero to Habana Abierta.<\/p>\n
After several days in Madrid, he boarded a plane and returned to the United States. And she began to work on all the material from the conversations she had managed to have with the artists in Spain. She was not yet related to the names of the members of the 13 y 8 group, those authors who would record Hidden Havana<\/i>, Habana Abierta<\/i>, Boomerang<\/i> and 24 horas<\/i>But there was something strange; among the influences cited by the artists there were names unknown to her: Omar Linares, Orestes Kindel\u00e1n, Antonio Pacheco, Eduardo Paret, Germ\u00e1n Padilla and Duque Hern\u00e1ndez.<\/p>\n
Thomas, excited, thinking she had found even lesser-known musicians, started googling and came up with averages of stolen bases, strikeouts, games finished or home runs. The musicologist had come across some insurmountable fuckers and was living a \"what the fuck\"<\/i> of the greatest that could have been imagined. The Cuban singer-songwriters, accustomed to the permanent joke, did not believe that this American, one of the most authoritative voices that could be found in terms of Cuban music studies in the United States, was truly interested in them.<\/p>\n
Time went by, and as she, as I said, was tenacious to the point of exhaustion, besides helping many Cuban singer-songwriters to make their work visible, to present themselves here and there, she published her second book, The Musical Mangrove: The Transnationalization of Cuban Alternative Music<\/i>. The Habana Abierta guys have continued the friendship with this beautiful and intelligent woman, who currently directs the Butler School of Music at the University of Austin, Texas, but who, at that time, did not beat the slider <\/i>of those guys who were changing the way of listening and understanding Cuban singer-songwriters' songs.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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