Latin America / Cuba / La Habana

Who is Benny Moré? He is not just another musician, he is unanimously the most brilliant popular artist that has existed on the Afro-Cuban island. He is the symbol, the myth, the legend, it is undoubtedly the summary of the popular, rich and abundant music of Cuba.

Benny Moré symbolizes the peasant “Guateque”, the “Sarao”, the bohemian, the coffee, the bar, the theater, the party, carnivals, the show. “El Bárbaro del Ritmo” was the most popular in Afro-Cuban music.

He was born on August 24, 1919 at seven in the morning in the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood of the town of Santa Isabel de las Lajas, belonging to the Cienfuegos province. His parents were Virginia Moré and Silvestre Gutiérrez, and Benny was the oldest of 18 siblings. His last name Moré came from Ta Ramón Gundo Moré (slave of the Count Moré), who, according to the tradition of the Congos, was his first king in Santa Isabel de las Lajas.

Benny was gifted with a fluent tenor voice that gave life with great expressiveness and this context was definitive for his future career in music. He learned to play the insundi, the yuka drums, the Makuta and Bembé, invocators of deities, with whom he not only sang and danced to perfection, but also played the son, the guaracha and the rumba.

Since he was a child he expressed his great vocation for music, he would spend all day humming a song or improvising and directing ensembles composed of machetes, bongos made with milk cans, guitars made with a board and nails with strings of string sew, two sticks as keys, and so on.

Moré was a teacher in all genres of Cuban music

The “Bárbaro del Ritmo” could always be found standing on a table singing and playing, surrounded by listeners. Bartolomé spent his childhood and adolescence, with no opportunity for study or permanent employment. Like his brother Teodoro, Bartolomé was enrolled in the School of Public Instruction “José de la Luz y Caballero”, where he always stood out for his conduct and application.

Why is the Bacardi symbol a bat?

Since he was a child, Moré had skills for singing and improvisation, which he demonstrated when he was barely seven years old, when he would run away for a few hours to entertain parties in the neighborhood and loved singing notes with his mother, to prevent her from sleeping while ironing late into the night.

His voice was particularly highlighted in the Son Montuno, the Mambo, and the Bolero

Benny went through a complicated life, but he was willing to do anything to achieve his dreams of triumph. With almost 20 years of age, in 1940 Bartolomé said goodbye to his mother at the Hotel Ritz in the Central Vertientes, where she worked, and traveled hidden, indistinctly, by train and truck to the City of Havana. He was definitely in the mission to try his luck in the bustling city!

Since then, he was seen by the famous neighborhood of Belen, with a guitar acquired in a pawnshop, wandering through cafes, bars, hotels, restaurants, and even brothels. That same year he told his cousin: “I stay in Havana, I rise up here or I sink”. From that moment began the saga of concerts at the bars of the port avenue … Once remembering those times, he confessed: “I threw myself into the street with a guitar on my shoulder to sing to tourists. I am not ashamed of it; Carlos Gardel also did it in Argentina and is the king of tango. ”

At that time, the CMQ station began broadcasting the Supreme Court of Art. Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré appeared in that program that Germán Pinelli and José Antonio Alonso encouraged. After presenting it and at the moment of beginning his presentation, they rang the bell.

Later Bartolomé returned to Monte and Prado to the Supreme Court and on this second occasion he won the first prize. Possessing a fresh voice, beautiful timbre, sensual and evocative. Bartolo sang with all the inner strength that claimed the Cuban rhythms.

In one of his raids, Siro Rodríguez, member of the famous Matamoros Trio, heard him sing in the bar of El Templete restaurant, on Avenida del Puerto, and was very impressed by the boy’s voice and tuning.

The entry of Bartolomé to the group of Miguel Matamoros was a fact and can be considered as his real debut as a professional singer, because with this group he had for the first time a steady job as a musician and made his first recordings on 78 revolutions per minute discs.

Benny knew he had a voice, the luck and a destiny. Perhaps he sensed it, intuited it, or simply trusted his triumph. When he started with Miguel Matamoros and his group, I already wanted to make changes in the picket line.

In Mexico, when Miguel became ill, he was able to direct the group, took control and enjoyed the “Cuates” in El Patio cabaret. When the contract ended, the Matamoros group returned to Havana, but without Bartolomé, who decided to try his luck by himself in Mexico.

When he communicated his decision to the famous author of El Son Siembra Su Maíz, Miguel Matamoros said: “It’s very good, but you have to change the name of Bartolo, which is very ugly. With that name you will not go anywhere”, You are right, Bartolo replied, from today I will call myself Benny, yes, Benny Moré. ”

The owner of the business was hypnotized by the very tasty atmosphere that Benny led as director. After singing with several push orchestras in Mexico, he planted himself beautifully with the most famous band of the 20th century: Pérez Prado and the Cuban mambo.

With this meeting two geniuses joined: Benny Moré had talent and natural intuition; in Pérez Prado, in addition to all that, the mastery of technique and an enormous facility to make music. With Perez Prado he conquered the noble Aztec people on tours of different states of that sister country.

Due to the success achieved by Benny, the town gave him the title of “Prince of Mambo” and Pérez Prado, “King of Mambo“. He sang like nobody else in the world and began his international promotion.

By that time, Benny’s voice was known in Panama, Colombia, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Venezuela, and of course, in his native Cuba.

In the joyful world of nightlife in Mexico City, the Cuban singer performed in many theaters, including Margo, Blanquita, Folliers and Cabaret Waikiki, alternating with renowned artists such as the legendary star Yolanda Montes (Tongolele), the Mexican Toña la Negra, and the outstanding cuban pianist and composer, Juan Bruno Tarraza, of whom Benny sang the bolero “It’s already twelve o’clock”.

Benny participates in many films and upon his return to Cuba, he was already certain that he had to be counted on.

The nostalgia for his family, friends, for the Homeland, and the desire to obtain laurels on his Island, where he considered that he was not known enough, made him return to his beloved Lajas at the end of the year 50. The ‘sonero mayor’ was definitely in Cuba, where he had left behind comforts, material and spiritual satisfactions, friends and even the loves that the successful do not usually lack.

During the following two years he acted by contract for a program called “De fiesta con Bacardí”, which was aired by the Eastern radio station with the orchestra of Mariano Mercerón, and the singers Fernando Álvarez Pacho Alonso.

As Benny Moré was an exclusive artist of RCA Víctor, this firm claimed his presence in Havana to make different recordings. In order to fulfill this commitment he gave alternative trips to Havana and thus maintained his responsibility with the eastern radio station.

After the commitment at Casa Bacardí and maestro Mercerón, in 1952 Benny Moré returned to Havana.

Certainly, Benny concluded an era, closed a chapter of Cuban musical life, that stage of nightlife that was already declining.

Benny’s life was related to a world that has already disappeared. Then everything became myths and legends … Benny kept on singing, but now it would be on scratch discs, which were digitized.

The “oidores” (listeners) will be transported in time, imagine the bars of the Havana port full of curious tourists. From Chinese restaurants selling “complete” to poor people who passed their hats, after singing through the streets of Havana – Cuba.