They were the answer to Motown.
The Detroit Free press delves into Cuban music, and gets the title of the article wrong, Los Zafiros were not Cuba's answer to the Beatles, but to Motown. With a particular style, they bridged the fifies and the sixties, and faded by the early seventies.
Every Cuban of my generation listened to the Zafiros in their own voice, the radio, their parents records, and in the shower-covers from Mom and Dad -and even the neighbors.
They were good people, and definitively they were not closet gusanos. I remember crossing the park of the barrio de Cayo Hueso in Havana, and seeing one of them, el Chino with a cap made out of panty hose "para amoldarse el pelo", and at the same time I could listening to their songs mixed with the kitchen smells that wafted in the air.
The tyanny left them destitute when they retired. They sank into poverty, and despair, but they never lost the love of their beloved public.
Other than the Beatles references, the article gets it, but still doesn't identify the Cuban tyranny as a force with a hand in the destruction of Los Zafiros, which was as much as an all Cuban band as the Platters were an all American band.
I am glad that at least they are remembered and their lifes and work are documented in film, because our memories one day will fade and extinguish.
Cuba's answer to the Beatles
Film explores forgotten Los Zafiros
May 3, 2007
BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE CRITIC
A year or so after the CD and subsequent movie "Buena Vista Social Club" became a sensation in the United States, bringing 1950s-style Cuban popular music to a 1990 audience that had never heard it, the same record company, Nonesuch, released other recordings by musicians heard on the "Social Club" recordings, as well as one made in the early '60s.
"Los Zafiros!" collected recordings made by the band of the title, whose name translates to "the Sapphires."
The music was different from the swaying sons and fiery boleros that had captivated Americans. This, in fact, was American-style pop of the era, doo-wop and early rock, music briefly heard and imported before Castro's revolution, then filtered through the then-fashionable folk-pop of nearby Trinidad that was called calypso.
The liner notes for the record, which I played incessantly for weeks, said the group's popularity was such that it was considered the Cuban Beatles, which admittedly I doubted until I saw the 2004 documentary "Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time."
In the film, director Lorenzo DeStefano tells the story of the band, mostly through surviving members Manuel Galban, accompanying guitarist (who is seen and heard in "Social Club"), and Miguel Cancio, one of the four vocalists whose close harmonies originally owed at least as much to the Ink Spots as to U.S. doo-wop acts like the Spaniels or Moonglows.
As R&B and contemporary pop music drifted, mostly illegally, into Cuba, Los Zafiros became closer in sound and spirit to Motown, especially Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, another vocal group with guitar. The band even performed Motown-style dance routines.
There is little film of the period, so the group's 10-year rise to the top and then back down again is recalled mostly in photographs and the memories of those who were there. Band members show us the clubs and sites of the former theaters where they played as well as the graves of their departed band mates.
At one point, Cancio is seen in the studio with Galban, singing a song he wrote about the group's time together. Don't be surprised if you shed a tear, not just for a band you've never heard of, but for fallen friends.
Contact TERRY LAWSON at 313-223-4524 or tlawson@freepress
Every Cuban of my generation listened to the Zafiros in their own voice, the radio, their parents records, and in the shower-covers from Mom and Dad -and even the neighbors.
They were good people, and definitively they were not closet gusanos. I remember crossing the park of the barrio de Cayo Hueso in Havana, and seeing one of them, el Chino with a cap made out of panty hose "para amoldarse el pelo", and at the same time I could listening to their songs mixed with the kitchen smells that wafted in the air.
The tyanny left them destitute when they retired. They sank into poverty, and despair, but they never lost the love of their beloved public.
Other than the Beatles references, the article gets it, but still doesn't identify the Cuban tyranny as a force with a hand in the destruction of Los Zafiros, which was as much as an all Cuban band as the Platters were an all American band.
I am glad that at least they are remembered and their lifes and work are documented in film, because our memories one day will fade and extinguish.
Cuba's answer to the Beatles
Film explores forgotten Los Zafiros
May 3, 2007
BY TERRY LAWSON
FREE PRESS MOVIE CRITIC
A year or so after the CD and subsequent movie "Buena Vista Social Club" became a sensation in the United States, bringing 1950s-style Cuban popular music to a 1990 audience that had never heard it, the same record company, Nonesuch, released other recordings by musicians heard on the "Social Club" recordings, as well as one made in the early '60s.
"Los Zafiros!" collected recordings made by the band of the title, whose name translates to "the Sapphires."
The music was different from the swaying sons and fiery boleros that had captivated Americans. This, in fact, was American-style pop of the era, doo-wop and early rock, music briefly heard and imported before Castro's revolution, then filtered through the then-fashionable folk-pop of nearby Trinidad that was called calypso.
The liner notes for the record, which I played incessantly for weeks, said the group's popularity was such that it was considered the Cuban Beatles, which admittedly I doubted until I saw the 2004 documentary "Los Zafiros: Music from the Edge of Time."
In the film, director Lorenzo DeStefano tells the story of the band, mostly through surviving members Manuel Galban, accompanying guitarist (who is seen and heard in "Social Club"), and Miguel Cancio, one of the four vocalists whose close harmonies originally owed at least as much to the Ink Spots as to U.S. doo-wop acts like the Spaniels or Moonglows.
As R&B and contemporary pop music drifted, mostly illegally, into Cuba, Los Zafiros became closer in sound and spirit to Motown, especially Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, another vocal group with guitar. The band even performed Motown-style dance routines.
There is little film of the period, so the group's 10-year rise to the top and then back down again is recalled mostly in photographs and the memories of those who were there. Band members show us the clubs and sites of the former theaters where they played as well as the graves of their departed band mates.
At one point, Cancio is seen in the studio with Galban, singing a song he wrote about the group's time together. Don't be surprised if you shed a tear, not just for a band you've never heard of, but for fallen friends.
Contact TERRY LAWSON at 313-223-4524 or tlawson@freepress
1 Comments:
I think the main influence for Los Zafiros were the Platters but they soon left them in the dust. Los Zafiros mixed R&R licks alongside with Duane Eddy like Surf licks and mixed doo-woop, Bolero, Calypso, Bossa Nova and of course typical Cuban rythms but overeall the sound itself was 100% ZAFIROS!
After the Beatles finished their gig at the Olympia in Paris in 1964, Lennon stuck around to hear Los Zafiroz (which he had heard rehearsing since their gigs sortta overlapped). Lennon was in the audience both nights Los Zafiros played and was OVERWHELMED.
After the las performance by los Zafiros Lennon came backstage and Los Zafiros had NO fucking idea who this guy was, until they were told they were the biggest thing in the WORLD at that moment so they hung out backstage . Lennon in total awe of their harmonies and their vocal range Theres is an obscure and VERY rare picture of John with los Zafiros floating someplace around the world. Of course the media attention was put straight on Lennon so although it was a press conference for Los Zafiros all the questions where directed to John. One of the questions was
“John, who do you think the best pop group in the world is RIGHT now? And John looked around Los Zafiros and answered.”Without a question THESE guys ARE!
There a couple of Beatles tunes with VERY Zafiro like chords and attempts to harmonies. After that John convince Paul to meet him and go see Los Zafiros in Amsterdam and Paul was also overwhelmed. So somehow … in some Beatles music there’s as much Cuban influence as there was Indian influence or Dylan influence !
And yes they went into total obscurity back then , now of course just like they did with the old guys from The Buenavista Social Club , the government is trying to capitalize on what they know is a treasure throve of great music which translates into LOTSSA CASH!
Right no wthere are like 20 “LOS ZAFIROS groups in Kuba , the kicker is that one afternoon I saw a group called LOS ZAFIRITOS (The Litte Zafiros) and that same night a group billed as LOS ZAFIROS was playing in a club near the house where I was staying and a good friend of mine was playing drums. When I asked about this, he mentioned that NOT one of the 20 some gropes named Los Zafiros has any members of the old Zafiros. That no royalties are paid to the living Zafiros or the families of the dead ones and that still MILLIONS of records of the original group are sold in Europe , Asia and Latin America.
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