To play with Benny you had to be Mandrake the magician (...) since Benny didn't know music he had to take Peruchín, Cabrerita or his compadre Generoso and hum the sound he was looking for, so he pulled out a stack of numbers like Vertientes, Camagüey, Florida and Moron. That day he arrived and told Peruchín, take this: torotororitoró, torotororitoró... And then Enrique Benítez and Fernando Álvarez came and rehearsed the lyrics and the choruses.
If things went well, he would shout: Boy, sugar, there! And if someone was out of tune, he would say: hey!
Memories of the greatest genius of Cuban popular music crowd into the memories of his tribe, as he called his Banda Gigante, which was founded at the urging of Enrique Benítez, when Benny complained about the exploitation he suffered at the hands of Bebo Valdés. and Mariano Mercerón, among others.
Benítez, one of the most serious men of the Cuban staff and second voice along with Fernando Álvarez, provoked the genius:That happens because you want it, buddy. You have the cachet to have your own orchestra…And what an orchestra. A Giant Band full of sound talent and with the necessary flexibility to follow a charismatic, irreverent, supportive, undisciplined, unpunctual genius and incapable of deciphering an eighth note.
But he didn't need it because in his head he could hear the sounds of the black congos of Santa Isabel de Las Lajas, in the center of Cuba, where his mother cleaned the Casino of those descendants of Africans, who rehearsed and partyed in front of the boy, who was playing the game. They are from that frenetic and feverish rhythm.
His mother soon discovered the genius of her son Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez because one night she noticed his absence, she covered her head with a towel because there was a full moon and she found him not far from home, standing on a table and singing and dancing at a party. . The mother's anger turned into amazement when she saw how her boy bewitched that audience of rude men and women who moved their hips to the rhythm of that hypnotic, melodic and lively voice.
Then came emigration to Havana and subsistence as a fruit seller on the streets of the center with small concerts in cafes and bars in the city where he triumphed, lived and died at the age of 44, undermined by liver cancer, excesses of alcohol and guaracha.
The legendary Miguel Matamoros told his companions Siro and Cueto that they should go looking for someone to replace him because his voice was no longer the same and Mariano Mercerón spoke to Siro about “a skinny mulatto who walks around the bars,” which was as Cuban musicians called the musical survival of the time.
The Matamoros went in search of the skinny mulatto and when Miguel heard it, he exclaimed: damn, this is the man! From Havana to Mexico, where he fulfilled the contract with the legendary trio and then remained there, with the help of Bebo Valdés, another undisputed talent of Cuban music with businessman skills, as was the case with the musician and composer Ernesto Duarte, author of that How It Was, that Benny immortalized.
In Mexico he earned money, fame and fell in love with the only woman he married and then left a widow: Juana Margarita Bocanegra Durán, who always remembered him with love for his delicacies and attention, such as going to a store in the then DF to buy her stockings, coinciding in the establishment with Celia Cruz, then singer of Sonora Matancera.
Back in Cuba, Benny Moré was number one in a period in which he had to compete with groups and singers of great quality and with the luck of sharing a generation of composers, children of the Spanish Golden Age, who still make Cuba vibrate. millions of people with his lyrics.
Benny was not boasting when he told another great of the Cuban pentagram, Rolando Laserie, you choose, I'll sing. His boleros, sones and mambos are on the sentimental Cuban victrola, but he put the cover on the record player the day he recorded with Aragón. The Cienfuegos orchestra had arrived in Havana, and trying to make their way, they encountered setbacks and quarrels from others, who conspired to make their passage difficult; and they dared to go see the Barbarian of Rhythm so that he would join the silent boycott.
-How am I going to do that to my people, to those peasants from my land!was his response and then he called Enrique Benítez and told him: until I tell you, put Aragón in the first part of our performances. Enrique didn't know what was happening, but he obeyed his boss and friend.
Rafael Lay never forgot that gesture from Benny and, when RCA Víctor called Aragón to record his first long play, he gave him the choice of an artist to record a number. Benny arrived late at the studio and went instrument by instrument humming the sound he wanted. Richard Egües, virtuoso and heavy, turned to the director and said: and do you think this sounds? Listen to Benny, if he says it sounds, this sounds.
In the middle of the recording, the wonderful flutist gave an extra note with the intention of testing the singer's ear, who ipso facto, raised his hands, stopped the recording and said: Master, the flute has missed a note. …
Much has also been said about his tardiness, in Cuba and abroad, but less is said about his sensitivity towards all people, as he did at a concert in Güines, hired by a rich man from the town for his daughter's 15th birthday party. in a club, in front of which numerous citizens gathered without being able to enter. The Barbarian of Rhythm fulfilled the contract and, when they thought it was over, he ordered the doors and windows to be opened and chairs placed under the windows and he improvised a concert for the people on the street, climbing on the chairs and looking out the door.
In 1960, he went to Pinar del Río to give a concert and discovered a woman crying in the audience. He approached her and the woman told him that it was her happiest day to see him in person, but also the saddest because her son He was imprisoned for political reasons. Benny kissed her and released one of his, then we'll figure that out, he said.
After the concert, he told the Giant Band that they were going to an engagement, and asked the woman to guide them to the prison where his son was. The lady, frightened, hesitated; but Benny's firmness overcame his fear and guided them to the barracks, where the singer tried, unsuccessfully, to get the young man out of the cell for a while. He was not intimidated, he asked the woman the name of her son and shouted: So-and-so, so-and-so; I'm Benny, this is for you! and the music started.
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