Search Results for: La Sonora Matancera

Julio Vilchez and his orchestra conquer Miami

Peru continues to give us something to talk about thanks to all the salsa talent coming out that country in recent years and today we had the opportunity to talk with one of them, which is the producer, composer and singer Julio Vilchez.

After we communicated with Vilchez via email and WhatsApp to schedule an interview, we have managed to have a great conversation in which we knew a little more about the artist’s beginnings in this fascinating world that is music.

This is Peruvian producer, composer and singer Julio Vilchez

Childhood and musical roots in the Vilchez family

It is not surprising that Vilchez took that parth of life considering that his father, Juan José Vilchez Sanchez, was a talented actor, comedian and professional dancer who carried music in the blood and ran some of the most famous salsa clubs in the city of Lima, which served as a stage for important national and international groups and singers of all genres.

Having referred with admiration to his father because of all that he achieved in life thanks to music, he assured that music definitely ran through the veins of his family and had always been a very important part of his childhood and youth.

Seeing all this, the years were not many when Vilchez became interested in musical instruments such as maracas, the bongo bell and the güiro, which led him to participate in groups such as Raíces, La Fragua and Soy Calidad.

Salsa and other genres

A large majority of Peruvian artists whom we had the honor to interview have typically ventured in Peruvian Creole music before getting involved in salsa, but not Vilchez. In fact, he pointed out to us that his country was heavily influenced by Cuba musically speaking and there used to be a time when groups from the island visited Peru such as La Sonora Matancera and Los Compadres. Peru also received influence from Colombia, Venezuela and Puerto Rico, although to a lesser extent.

The artist also remembers that, at home, he and his family always used to listen to Venezuelan singers and orchestras such as La Dimensión Latina, Oscar D’ León, Luisito Quintero, Nati Y Su Orquesta, among others. In the case of Puerto Rico, of course Vilchez and his family used to listen to La Fania All Stars.

Vilchez was part of Raíces, La Fragua and Soy Calidad — Julio Vilchez was part of groups such as Raíces, La Fragua and Soy Calidad

Formal beginnings of Julio Vilchez in music

In the neighborhood Vilchez and his family lived in, the singer made friends with other local boys and met up with them to sing in a completely amateur way. In addition to that, he liked to participate in school talent shows, in which he delighted the crowd performing songs from Oscar D’León, Rubén Blades and Willie Colón.

After attaining the age of 17, he began working alongside his father in the business of running clubs, which gave him the opportunity to spend time with the members of the orchestra La Progresiva del Callao, who performed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in one of those places.

Since Vilchez loved to dance and the orchestra focused a lot on its choreographies, the young man identified himself a lot with the group and began to learn the steps the singers performed on stage. One day, the boys saw him dancing and invited him to sing with them in one of their shows, in which he danced very well, but he did not sing in the best way. For this reason, he got the opportunity to stay permanently in the orchestra, but only as a dancer for the moment.

Over time, he was grabbing experience on stage and getting over stage fright until he managed to keep up with the rest of his orchestra fellows with the passing of days.

Julio Vilchez with Cano Estremera — Julio Vilchez with Puerto Rican salsa singer Cano Estremera

Vilchez’s time in Venezuela

Vilchez made friends with a group of Venezuelan musicians who accompanied Oscar D’ León in one of his concerts and invited him to travel with them to Venezuela because they wanted him to be part of the sextet they were going to create, which was meant to perform at a tavern in Caracas.

Seeing that things were going well in Venezuela at that time, Vílchez decided to accept the invitation and immigrate to the South American country to try his luck. Once there, he spent a lot of time alone because the boys from the sextet traveled a lot, something which took advantage to get to know other groups, one of them being La Selecta de Cúa. One day, Vilchez was walking down the street and heard this orchestra rehearsing, but it needed a singer. That is when Vilchez proposed himself as an option, was admitted and worked for about two years in this orchestra.

Although he did well in Venezuela, he ended up returning to his native country because he missed his homeland and his father could not get used to having him away, so he packed suitcases and decided to return.

Cover of the album Tributo al Caballero by Julio Vilchez

Life in the United States

One of the songs he released in 1995 led him to make a video clip, which started to become very popular on music channels and shows, giving him the recognition Vilchez aimed for so long.

Since things were not going as he expected on his solo career, he joined the Orquesta La Novel to continue working on music for the next two years. Although his name was not as well known as Vilchez needed it to be, his song was still sounding loud internationally for quite some time, which led him to receive a proposal to perform eight shows with his orchestra in the United States in 2000.

When Vilchez and the rest of the musicians traveled to Miami, about nine members of the orchestra received proposals to stay in the country and decided to accept. It was there where the artist gathered his courage and says to himself ”I’m staying too”. That was over 24 years ago now.

At that point, the Peruvian had to look for other musicians to replace the others in order to finish the concert tour they had scheduled. It was then when he contacted José Alberto ”El Canario” through a Peruvian colleague of his to use his band for the remainder of the tour and so he did. Vilchez did two or three shows with this band and stayed in Miami from 2001 to 2004.

Given the lack of musical proposals, he spent a few years in New York, but returned to Miami some time later to work both with music and with a business sector linked to gastronomy, since living only from music is complicated. In addition to that, his children live in Miami and he wanted to spend more time with them, so this was also a powerful reason to return.

Justo Betancourt Querol Cuban sonero and singer famous for his interpretation of the song “Pa’ bravo yo”

Heir to the solid musical tradition of his family, Justo Betancourt was an incomparable sonero, possessing a unique personal style, He began his career at a very early age in his native Cuba, where he participated with orchestras and bands.

In the 1960s, he arrived in New York, where he launched a new and brilliant stage of his career, singing vocals for the legendary and inveterate group, La Sonora Matancera, which was already established in the city. Betancourt stayed with the group for five years.

In later years, he was a member of the chorus of several groups, including those of Eddie Palmieri and Ray Barretto.

At the end of 1976 Justo settled in Puerto Rico, fleeing the limitations of the New York environment and separating himself from the tours and recordings of Fania All Stars, to enter the modern and freer scene projected by groups such as Sonora Ponceña, Willie Rosario, Bobby Valentín and Roberto Roena, among others, from the island.

With young musicians including vocalists Sammy Gonzalez and Tito Rojas, he created his own orchestra which he called “Borincuba”, a name to reflect the mixture of Puerto Rican and Cuban artists.

In 1976 Johnny Pacheco in his interest to maintain the successful formula of the modernization of the sound of the Sonora Matancera as the typical sound of his group (the Tumbao Añejo), unites the voice of Justo Betancourt with that of his compatriot Celia Cruz, it was the first time that this duo of Cubans in exile was reunited, in the album “Recordando El Ayer” and in which the young pianist Papo Lucca was presented in a big way. Justo’s voice was recorded in the songs “La Equivocada” (a duet with Celia), “Ahora Sí” and “Guíllate”.

Celia, Johnny, Justo & Papo Recordando El Ayer 1976

That same year 1976, Justo is part of the ten vocalists that the Fania All Stars summons for his first production in a recording studio in the project “Tribute To Tito Rodriguez”, in which he performs the song “Cara De Payaso”, (the other vocalists were Santos Colón, Bobby Cruz, Cheo Feliciano, Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Miranda, Ismael Quintana, Pete “Conde” Rodríguez, Rubén Blades (his first recording with Fania All Stars) and Chivirico Dávila (his only recording with the group).

Fania All Stars Tribute To Tito Rodriguez 1976

To complete this productive year, Justo Betancourt joins percussionist Mongo Santamaría as the lead vocalist for the musical work “Ubane”, with the production of Marty Sheller, one of the important experimental albums of the salsa boom, a work that recovers the saxophone for the Salsa and bembé orchestra in the old Cuban Guaracha of the 50’s, and in which a constellation of New York, Cuban, Puerto Rican and Colombian musicians participate.

However, the album did not succeed in definitely catching on with the public and ended in the most unjust failure.

With his new orchestra, he recorded four albums, of which he recorded as lead singer in only two albums: “Distinto Y Diferente” (1977) which includes the songs: “No Estás En Nada”, “Distinto Y Diferente”, “Soy Profesional” and “Óyela”; and “¡Presencia!” (1978) which includes a tremendous new version of the bolero “Psicología” and the song, composed by Catalino “Tite” Curet Alonso, “Camarón”. Justo was always among the best and remained oblivious to the decadence of the industrial boom of New York Salsa at the end of the decade.

Justo Betancourt Distinto Y Diferente 1977

His secret was to remain bravo by performing authentic Caribbean music without the commercial additives imposed by Salsa.

The young singer who performed in the chorus and Justo’s student in Borincuba, Tito Rojas, became the lead singer in the following album “Con Amor” (1978), which Betancourt conducted and participated in the chorus.

Tito Rojas’ last work before splitting from Borincuba to start his solo career was the album titled only as “Borincuba”, in which Justo also served as musical director and backing vocalist.

Justo Betancourt Presenta Su Conjunto Borincuba Canta Tito Rojas Con Amor 1978

So in 1979, when Tito inherited the band, he started his solo career changing the name to Tito Rojas y el Conjunto Borincano¸ which had a short existence.

After a series of his own albums, he became the lead vocalist of the Puerto Rican Power Orchestra and appeared on their first two albums (1987 and 1989).

In 1990, Tito Rojas embarked on his solo career with the romantic salsa album “Sensual” which reached first place in the Latin Music Hit Parade in April.

In the following years, Betancourt, residing between New York and San Juan, continued in the inertia of the Fania contracts. In March 1979, when the Fania All Stars were part of the group of musicians who traveled to the island of Cuba to participate in the “Havana Jam Festival”, a musical exchange between the United States and Cuba organized by CBS and held at the Karl Marx Theater in Havana, Justo Betancourt and his compatriot Celia Cruz, for obvious political reasons, could not travel with the group; for this reason Justo decided to leave the All Stars.

Nevertheless, his contract with the Fania company remained in force, and that year he released another album titled “Justo Betancourt” (1979), produced by himself and Louie Ramirez, which included the songs “Yo Sin Ti” and “Qué Más Quieres De Mi”, among others.

In 1981, Betancourt returns to record again with the Sonora Matancera in an album entitled “Sonora Matancera Con Justo Betancourt”, produced by Javier Vásquez and recorded on the Bárbaro label, a subsidiary of Fania and owned by Jerry Masucci. On this album, four guest musicians appear for the first time to record with the Sonora: Pedro “Puchi” Boulong: on trumpet, José Daniel: on the tumbadora, Elpidio Vásquez Jr. (son of the bassist): on second bass, and Mario Hernández: on tres.

From this work the hit “Mala Pata” and a new version of the bolero “Hoy Sé Más” stand out.

In 1982, he recorded his last work on the Fania Records label “Leguleya No” (1982), with his own production company RMQ and with the arrangements and musical direction of Ray Santos and Javier Vásquez.

From 1982 onwards his appearances were variable, he participated in Israel Sardinas’ LP, “Israel, la Verdad” (1984), and participated in Celia Cruz and Tito Puente’s album “Homenaje A Benny Moré Vol. 3” in 1985, in one of the songs: “Tú Solo Tú”.

Except for these participations, he made no recordings between 1983 and 1989.

And so, there were plenty of reasons for Justo Betancourt, despite so many successes, to end up in virtual anonymity and indifference. He gradually withdrew from the world of the studios, although he continued to perform sporadically.

After years of recording silence, he returned in 1990 with his style with the album “Regresar” on his own label RMQ, of which he was the producer, director and did half of the arrangements written by Eric Figueroa.

In 1992 he released the album “El Bravo De Siempre”, for Rafael Viera’s RV Productions label, which featured the participation of Cuban percussion legend Carlos “Patato” Valdes, among other great Puerto Rican musicians.

In 1994 he participated in the project of Puerto Rican producer and musician Frank Ferrer called “Descarga Boricua”, alongside more than 30 experienced local and international musicians such as Ismael Miranda, Jerry Medina, Papo Vázquez, Juancito Torres, Alex Acuna, Mario Rivera, Pedro Guzmán and Ángel “Cachete” Maldonado, among others. There, and in several songs, he resorted to his superb vocal resources as in his good times. In the second work of the Descarga Boricua, edited in 1996, he participated briefly with some soneos in the song “Abrázate a Puerto Rico”, as well as in the third album of the reunion of the virtuous Puerto Rican musicians.

He returned to the recording studios again in 1998 with the CD “Mató” for the El Paso label in Puerto Rico, and from which the song “El Lema Del Guaguancó” stands out in the most vigorous style of Arsenio Rodríguez, composer of the song.

He also made his return as guest singer of the Fania All Stars for the concert of April 29, 2000 in Puerto Rico, a return that he made together with Ismael Miranda and Luigi Texidor to the group.

Justo Betancourt has participated as a backing vocalist in the recordings of many Latin music orchestras and works of renowned artists, such as La Conspiración de Ernie Agosto, Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, Roberto Roena, Willie Colón, Eddie Palmieri, Willie Rosario’s orchestra, Héctor Lavoe, Adalberto Santiago, Kim De Los Santos, Van Lester and the Puerto Rican Power orchestra, among others.

In 2002 he participated for pianist Papo Lucca in the musical project “Festival de Boleros” with the song “En Cada Beso”, along with a constellation of Boricua singers and musicians.

Sources:

Por: Jose Ramon Tremaria

Ecued

Fania Stars

Also Read: Nicky Marrero is an innovator, timbalero and bongo player, living legend of our Afro-Latin and Caribbean music.

Wuelfo Gutiérrez López was a brilliant Sonero, “El Ultimo de los Matanceros”

Wuelfo Huergo Gutiérrez López, son of Wuelfo the sailor, was born in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba on September 23, 1942.

The eldest of three brothers, he was from a very young age an enthusiast of dancing, music and singing.

On May 31, 2005, Wuelfo Gutiérrez López “El Ultimo de los Matanceros” passed away.

He was a brilliant Sonero of outstanding participation with “La Sonora Matancera”, Orquesta de Javier Vásquez, “Orquesta Harlow”, and his own group, which he founded in Mexico after settling in this country.

He gave as much luster to his small homeland as to the big one: in the 70’s he was the singer of the famous “Sonora Matancera”, the pioneer of the Cuban ensembles.

At the end of the 50’s he organized together with three other coterráneos, Juan Luis Cobo, Manolito Santos, and Rolando (Rolo, E.P.D.) González, a quartet called “The Fraterns” (Los Fraternos), in the style of the American school of famous quartets like “The Platters”, “The Drifters”, “Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers”, and others that marked a guideline in the history of “Rock and Roll” and the so-called “Doo Wop”, which is a choral sound characteristic of these groups of the decades of the 50s and 60s.

Around 1958, the group appeared in the well-known José Antonio Alonso’s program of the then powerful Cuban television, which was a continuity of “La Corte Suprema del Arte” of the Cuban radio, initiated in 1938, from where great figures of the Cuban music came out. Substantial changes took place in our country and soon after “Rock and Roll”, at least in Cuba, fell into silence.

Wuelfo left Cuba in mid-1961. I did not see him again (although I always knew about him through his brothers Juan and Gabriel) until 1979, when he returned to visit his native land.

Always with the same sympathy and friendly and popular simplicity that characterized him.

At that time he had already been with “La Sonora Matancera”; the great singer Roberto Torres, “El Güinero Mayor”, who was leaving his place in the Sonora to form his own group, introduced him to the director Rogelio Martinez, who accepted him immediately.

He remained with La Sonora from 1973 to 1976, with which he visited the U.S.A., Mexico and most of Latin America. He recorded, among sones and guarachas, 20 numbers of diverse musical authors, among them: “Anacaona”, by Tite Curet Alonso; “A Burujón Puñao”, by José Carbó Menéndez; “Así Se Compone Un Son”, by Ismael Miranda; “Muñeco Viajero”, by Carlos and Mario Rigual; and “El Chivo”, by our late compoblano Vinicio Gonzaléz, one of our santiagueras glories, among other authors.

When he left La Sonora due to disagreements with Don Rogelio, he settled definitively in Mexico, which became his second homeland.

In Mexico City he formed his own group, which he named “Sonora Las Vegas”, alluding to the person who made him known as a singer and gave him celebrity, and to his hometown, therefore Las Vegas.

He began to be called “Mister Salsa” working in radio, television and cabarets. He loved Mexico very much; in an interview he said: “because the people are tasty and because I feel at home here”.

In Mexico he married Miss Araceli Zoreda Pérez, from whose marriage there were no children; the union was interrupted by Araceli’s death several years later.

The year 1989 marked the 65th anniversary of the founding of “La Tuna Liberal”, among other names, which achieved notoriety in Cuba and internationally under the name of Sonora Matancera. So that this date would not be overlooked, the notable Puerto Rican journalist, broadcaster and producer Gilda Mirós had the happy initiative to gather all the singers alive at that time who had left their art with La Sonora Matancera.

The event was to be held in New York City. Wuelfo was there singing “Anacaona”, together with a true constellation of stars: Vicentico Valdés, Yayo El Indio, Celio Gonzaléz, Nelson Pinedo, Carlos Argentino, Bobby Capó, Alberto Beltrán, Leo Marini, Albertico Pérez, Roberto Torres, Jorge Maldonado, Daniel Santos, and the greatest female voice Cuba has ever produced: Celia Cruz.

In July 1995 I met my friend again, when Wuelfo arrived from Mexico invited to the celebration of our patron saint, Santiago Apostle, in the halls of the former Radisson Hotel in Miami. Among those present sang Amado Herrera (Maninito), José Antonio García (Chamaco), and Wuelfo. All the santiagueros present recognized our values; among them were Wuelfo Sr. and other close relatives.

I did not see him again until 1999, when a group of santiagueros friends welcomed him to Miami, where he intended to settle down. It was not possible.

Wuelfo’s last recording?

He had spoken to me about sending me his recordings with the idea of getting them to some radio stations so that they would know him, and in turn, to some places where records were sold to see if I would have the opportunity to play his recordings, among them the 14 LPs he had recorded and possibly his last recording, a CD called “Wuelfo Cumbia Del Gato Volador”, which he kindly sent me from Mexico.

He spent long periods of time in Veracruz, where he felt at home and his performances were strongly applauded. To such an extent that the government of the state of Veracruz, in November 2003, offered him a just tribute in the framework of the Festival del Son (first photo, above right). On that occasion he performed with his “Sonora Las Vegas” at the La Reforma Theater and the Atarazanas Cultural Center.

Wuelfo, Lázaro Reutilio Domínguez (son of Celina González and Reutilio Domínguez), and the author meet by chance at the “Palacio de los Jugos” on 8th Street and 143rd Avenue in Southwest Miami.

Like many other singers, he dreamed of spending the rest of his life singing; he wanted to die on the stage. Apparently an oversight in his health was complicated by prostate cancer. We would talk on the phone from time to time and he would show me that he was very optimistic, but he was not. In 2004 he underwent intensive treatment at the Oncology Hospital of the Centro Medico Nacional Siglo XXI in Mexico City, but the initial illness led to pulmonary complications which in turn caused a stroke that took his life on May 31, 2005.

According to a friend who assisted him until the last hour, it was very sad to see how his life was passing away.

The Sindicato Único de Trabajadores de la Música had been carrying out activities to collect funds to help him financially.

He was buried in the American Pantheon at 11:00 a.m. on June 1, 2005.

It seems to me very fair to remember this value of ours six years after his departure, remaining in our local history along with other celebrities that also in due time it will be necessary to give them the merit they deserve, not only for future generations to know them, but at present there are coterráneos that for lack of the required information, and against our will, do not know anything about them.

This small biography is not even remotely all that can be known and said of Wuelfo, because there are stages unknown by the writer, who urges those who know and wish, to make their contribution to know much more of our singer friend, who had the honor of going down in posterity, perhaps without him thinking about it, for having sung with that great musical group that was and is La Sonora Matancera.

This work would not have been possible if he had not had the help of Dr. Héctor Ramírez Bedoya. Héctor Ramírez Bedoya, Colombian anesthesiologist who helps many to mitigate their ills through surgery in his native Medellín, but who as a musicographer, and from the presidency of the Corporación Club Sonora Matancera de Antioquia, has had the merit of having written the “Historia de la Sonora Matancera y sus Estrellas”, a book of the same title published in 1996, which is considered the greatest work ever written about the dean of the Cuban ensembles.

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Joseíto Mateo “They call me the Negrito del Batey, because work for me is an enemy”

Joseito was a consecrated Dominican merenguero who began his career in the 1930’s, better known as “El rey del merengue, El diablo Mateo”.

As a child he learned to sing and dance. He sang at the “Fiestas de la cruz” and at wakes, since at that time the deceased were prayed to with songs.

Mateo began his career as a singer during the 30’s, a period in which he was gaining the public’s favor.

Some time later he was requested by the record label “SEECO” to join the cast that in Havana would record with the Sonora Matancera.

Those were the years of the Trujillo Era in which Dominicans required an exit permit to travel abroad.

At first, this document was denied to Joseito.

As a consequence, in Havana, once the record was contracted and the pieces that would be part of it had been selected, including “El negrito del batey”, Joseito’s place was taken by the Dominican singer Alberto Beltrán, who was known since then by the Cuban public as “El negrito del batey”, instead of his true inspirer.

He was born on April 6, 1920 in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic).

In one of his later trips, he decided to stay in Cuba to sing in CMQ, together with Celia Cruz and La Sonora Matancera, a very popular group at that time.

After the assassination of Rafael Trujillo on May 30, 1961 and the end of his dictatorship, Joseito decided to try his luck in Puerto Rico.

In 1962, Joseíto participated as vocalist in the first tour of the “Gran Combo” to Panama, to promote the album ‘El Gran Combo con Joseíto Mateo’.

There he met the young singers Pellín Rodríguez and Andy Montañez, who ended up replacing him in the Puerto Rican group.

“El Gran Combo was very good to me, I adapted to sing plena, bomba, guaracha, boleros, but then I had to return to Santo Domingo to clear my name.

They were falling behind all those who were with Trujillo, and in the Republic they said I was a spy and was on the run”.

Mateo’s professional work has spanned more than 70 years and constitutes an important reference of the Dominican musical culture.

He was nourished by the roots of merengue and became a singular exponent of it. His innovative style was characterized by a stage participation enriched by his particular way of dancing and singing.

Some of his best known songs are Madame Chuchí, Dame la visa, La cotorra de Rosa and La patrulla, among others. Joseito is known as “El Rey del Merengue” (The King of Merengue).

On November 11, 2010, Mateo was recognized at the 11th Latin Grammy Awards with the Latin Recording Academy’s Musical Excellence Award for his contributions to Latin music.

He retired in 2001, close to his 82nd birthday and after recording 50 “elepes”.

Joseíto Mateo passed away on June 1, 2018 at the age of 98, due to leukemia. He spent his last days in the Hospital de las Fuerzas Armadas.

Source:

https://www.buscabiografias.com/biografia/verDetalle/8662/Joseito%20Mateo

Frankie Vázquez “El Sonero de todos los Barrios and still going strong” Guatacando

Efrain is a Puerto Rican Sonero Excélsior, he was born in Salinas in La Isla del Encanto.

His father gave him his first conga at the age of 10, and another one two years later, which allowed him to practice to the rhythm of his mother’s records: El Gran Combo, Cortijo and Eddie Palmieri.

His parents helped him to create his own band at the age of 16 “Los Generales” where he played congas; the band played concerts in his father’s restaurant. Suddenly replacing the singer of the orchestra, he becomes better and more popular. He then dedicated himself to singing, without giving up instruments such as congas, timbales, clave, maracas, güiro and bell.

He moved to New York ’77, debuted recording on Al Santiago’s production Fuego ’77 to Alegre by the young band of the same name; Al liner note Frankie described as “enthusiastic, energetic and full of life”, he always chorused and sang lead vocals on the cut “Nueva York”, his cousin David Sanchez handled the remaining lead vocals. Fuego ’77 lasted two years.

Frankie performs: “New York”, where his very young voice is barely recognizable:

“New York site of opportunity

New York the city I love the most

I have a feeling that one day I would make it big”.

In the others, David Sanchez sings and Frankie is on backing vocals. Both are thanked in the credits for having contributed to the sounds.

This album is a wonderful little one, no song disappoints, on the contrary there is a communicative energy from the first to the last song.

“Fuego 77” was a band of young people in their early 20s.

He then spent two years with Sonido Taiborí (Sánchez sang in chorus with Johnny Ortiz and Taiborí ’79 in Fania with lead singer Tito Nieves, founder Ortiz, an outstanding Puerto Rican composer, later left), a year and a half with Orquesta Calidad and intermittently worked for three years with Orquesta Metropolitana.

He joined the “Conjunto Wayne Gorbea Salsa” for five years, providing lead vocals and güiro, accompanying one of the highlights of the Montuno sessions. He replaced Herman Olivera as singer with Manny Oquendo and his “Conjunto Libre” in December 1990, making his debut.

He partnered with pianist Martin Martin, bandleader of the magnificent “Los Soneros del Barrio” Orchestra in 1999.

He has sung with the Lebron Brothers for more than three years, as well as other spectacular company such as New swing Sextet, Leña Moncho, Tony Gonzalez, La Sonora Matancera, Frankie Morales, Delgado Jimmy, Joe Cuba, Jimmy Bosch, Spanish Harlem Orchestra and stop counting with his great success characterized.

He is currently one of the artists who has participated in countless recordings all over the world and even participated as a special guest in the group Dislocados de Ucrania.

His career is very rich and the list of his collaborations that we have just mentioned is not exhaustive.

We hope that the list will grow because we love his way of modulating his voice in each song, with a perfect diction, and his inspirations that enchant us in concert.

Facebook: Frankie Vázquez