![]() His fame grew as did his admirers, and he began travelling with larger bands. He played to a crowd of 100,000 one night, gathered on the beach off Havana’s famous malecón. Recognition came late from the island of his birth and inspiration, but when it came, it touched down in a landslide. ![]() From Colombia, Montañez conquered much of Bolivarian Latin America and Mexico, and, while frozen out of the US, bedazzled Western Europe. Polo even wrote a song for the Barefoot Diva, “Amor e Distância”, after they performed together in Paris.Ĭolombia was the spark that ignited Polo’s international fame, as Guajiro Natural went gold within a week of its release. LusAfrica’s José da Silva plucked Polo and his group off the Rosario Mountains’ hotel circuit da Silva is also credited for bringing international fame to Cesária Évora. #UN MONTON DE ESTRELLAS LYRICS SKIN#He found his expression and genius in music, country music, no wires, except the steel strings of the Cuban guitar (or très: 6 strings paired off), an ever emotive violin and catch-as-catch-can percussion hewn from a fallen branch, a dented old cow’s bell, or a slaughtered goat’s skin and a hollowed log, plus a pair of hands leathered from hard work, and vocal chords textured by wear and the pitfalls of a hardscrabble life. Polo was the iconic guajiro-born Fernando Borrego Linares, he renamed himself for the mountains he so much loved-the poster boy for a humble countryman’s life that’s sanctified by the masterwork of Nature that surrounds him. ![]() His oeuvre was distilled into these two releases after his fame had been ignited in 1999, before being extinguished on beloved hills when his car crashed into a truck on the way home from a gig in Havana on the night of 20 November, 2002. He recorded and released his albums using long-standing players with a judicious number of guest musicians for a bit more punch.įrom the age of 18 Polo composed, all in his head and wherever he might find himself. The quotidian, his love of countryside and of country, as well as his love of being in love and of womanhood, were expressed in the over 70 songs he wrote under the rubric of Cuba’s native genres, embroidering the lyricism of trova, loosely derived from the European troubadours, while riffing on the country charm of African-inflected son both forms dovetail into easy love songs, mostly, performed by small itinerant groups. ![]() (LusAfrica was able to cobble together a memorial album after his death, Memoria, culling some pieces from the aforementioned albums, and other material, with understandably uneven results.)īorn in 1955, Montañez was a scrapper from the province of Pinar del Río in the luscious hills of western Cuba he chopped wood, drove a tractor, herded cows, made charcoal, worked at anything to sustain himself, but from the age of seven until the instance of his death, he made music by churning up his inner depths, sharing his vulnerability with all, affecting all, even illuminating some. ![]() #UN MONTON DE ESTRELLAS LYRICS ARCHIVE#The albums represent the brief but memorable archive of an artist stolen by tragedy from his passion and from burgeoning renown. The music of Polo Montañez is back in circulation after almost 15 years, thanks to LusAfrica’s reissue of his two recordings, Guajiro Natural (2000) and Guitarra Mia (2002). ![]()
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