Guantanamera, the story of universal music
Guantanamera is part of a very popular musical genre in the fields of Cuba: the guajira or Cuban punto. With a strong white and Spanish influence, it is the mixture of the rhythms of the children of Spaniards born in America, the Creoles.
During colonization, the presence of black slaves in the interior of the country was restricted to work on farms and sugar mills. The Spanish immigrants who chose to live in the countryside, in general, were peasants who worked on the land.
The name guajiro as a synonym for the Cuban peasantry comes from the time when the Spanish conquistadors, after decimating the indigenous population and still without black slaves, turned to the Indians of the region of La Guajira, between Venezuela and Colombia, to work in the field .
It is not known exactly when La Guantanamera appeared. It is a folkloric manifestation of the peasant people. Its origin is the city of Guantánamo, where the United States naval base is located. The title of the song La Guantanamera means woman from Guantánamo.
Joseíto Fernández, a well-known Havana troubadour, was the first guajira singer who spread La Guantanamera on the island. In a radio program of the 1940s, called La Guantanamera — whose themes were chosen on the police pages of newspapers — alternated parts sung with the dramatization of crimes.
At the end of each part, the chorus was repeated: “Guantanamera, guajira guantanamera…”. The program became so popular that the people adopted the phrase “me cantó una Guantanamera…”, to say that someone told a sad fact.
Most island music scholars say that Joseíto Fernández was the first to sing and record Poesía I dos Versos Sencillos, published in 1891 by José Martí, with the melody of La Guantanamera. But it is important to note that Joseíto Fernández had nothing to do with the melody or the text of La Guantanamera as we know it today.
Cuban musicologist Tony Evora says that the incorporation of some verses from Versos Sencillos is due to a version by the Spanish composer Julián Orbón (1925–91). Orbón was a professor at the Cuban Héctor Angulo at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Héctor showed the version of Orbón to the North American singer Pete Seeger who spread it.
“Guantanamera”
Composition
José Martí and music José Fernández Díaz (Josito Fernandez)
Guantanamera is one of the most celebrated songs in Cuban music, written by José Martí and music by Josito Fernandez. Guantanamera is the gentile (female) for those born in Guantánamo, in the southeastern province of Cuba.
The song dates back to 1963 and is one of the best known recordings of the Sandpipers group. In Brazil, it was re-recorded by several groups, such as Tarancón and Raíces de América. In Portugal, it was re-recorded by the rock band UHF in 1998 on the album Rock É! Dancing In The Night.
In 2015 she was part of the musical and philanthropist Playing for Change project, being very well performed by 75 Cubans around the world, from the island of Cuba to Tokyo, being very well represented and very well sung. The song is also part of the project’s third album.
It was recently played at SESI in São Paulo by the street punk band “O Satânico Dr. Mao and the Secret Spies”.
References
«Guantanamera (Single)». Spirit Of Rock. Retrieved on June 19, 2014.
Listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-193484126/guantanamera-playing-for-change-song-around-the-world
