Buena Vista Social Club

A group of veteran Cuban musicians gathered in Havana in 1996 when a planned collaboration fell through, whose one album, produced by Ry Cooder, became an international success.

Origin: Havana, Cuba
Years active: 1996-2015
Genres: son, bolero, danzón, trova
Labels: World Circuit, Nonesuch
Also known as: Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club

A plan that fell through

In March 1996 Nick Gold of World Circuit Records invited Ry Cooder to Havana to record Cuban musicians alongside musicians from Mali. The Malians did not get visas, and the plan changed to an album of Cuban son. Within three days Cooder, Gold and the Cuban bandleader Juan de Marcos González had organized the group, and they recorded at the old EGREM studio, where the equipment and atmosphere were unchanged since the 1950s. The same sessions produced the Afro-Cuban All Stars album A toda Cuba le gusta, made under de Marcos before this one. For the second record they gathered veterans of the son, bolero and danzón, some of whom had long stopped playing.

Compay Segundo, born in 1907, played a seven-stringed instrument of his own devising, the armónico. Ibrahim Ferrer was about seventy and shining shoes. The pianist Rubén González did not own a piano. Eliades Ochoa led the group Cuarteto Patria, Barbarito Torres played the laúd, and Omara Portuondo was the only woman. The name came from a members' club in Havana's Buenavista quarter, a popular venue in the 1940s that closed after the revolution, and Gold chose it as the name of the project from the title of a danzón that González had played for Cooder.

The record

Cooder produced Buena Vista Social Club with twenty musicians, among them his son Joachim on percussion. He later told the Library of Congress that it took eight days, three of them lost to electrical and other technical problems, and that a translator named Toti from the Film Institute ran the whole thing. He said he directed little, mostly telling the players to stop talking and play. The record opens with Compay Segundo's Chan Chan and closes with La bayamesa. In between come Ochoa's El cuarto de Tula, Ferrer singing Dos gardenias and Candela, Portuondo's Veinte años and the title danzón, Buena Vista Social Club.

The first mixes in California lacked clarity. Gold said they searched until they found the same model of desk in a Los Angeles studio, and recalled Cooder saying it was like someone had wiped the windows clear. Rolling Stone's Tom Moon gave the record four stars in 1997 and wrote that Cooder never tramples the songs, though he found some of the Western swing guitar on Orgullecida an intrusion.

Success

World Circuit released the album in 1997, with Nonesuch handling the United States. It topped the German chart, reached number 80 on the Billboard 200, won the 1998 Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album, and came in at number 260 on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums. The Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2022. Other records from the same sessions include Introducing...Rubén González in September 1997, then Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer in 1999, which won Ferrer the Latin Grammy for Best New Artist the next year.

The full line-up played two nights at the Royal Theater Carré in Amsterdam in April 1998 and at Carnegie Hall on 1 July 1998. Wim Wenders filmed both, and his 1999 documentary Buena Vista Social Club, which also has interviews with the performers, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and won the European Film Award for best documentary.

Afterwards

The Carnegie Hall concert came out in full as Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall in October 2008, and Lost and Found collected leftover studio tracks and later live recordings in March 2015. Compay Segundo and Rubén González died in 2003 and Ferrer in 2005. By 2015 six of the original members had died, and the group toured as Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club with a changing line-up, ending with a farewell tour that year. A second documentary, Buena Vista Social Club: Adios, directed by Lucy Walker, followed in 2017, and a stage musical reached Broadway in 2025, with ten Tony nominations and four wins.

Cooder told the Library of Congress in 2022 that they were lucky to catch the tail end of the comet, and that most of the musicians had since died. For him the sessions were a master class.

Members

Ry Cooder guitar, producer (from 1996)
Juan de Marcos González musical director, güiro (from 1996)
Compay Segundo armónico, guitar, vocals (1996-2003)
Ibrahim Ferrer vocals (1996-2005)
Rubén González piano (1996-2003)
Eliades Ochoa guitar, vocals (from 1996)
Omara Portuondo vocals (from 1996)
Orlando "Cachaíto" López upright bass (1996-2009)
Barbarito Torres laúd (from 1996)
Manuel "Guajiro" Mirabal trumpet (from 1996)
Manuel "Puntillita" Licea vocals (1996-2000)
Joachim Cooder drums, percussion (from 1996)

Records

Buena Vista Social Club 1997 · World Circuit
Fourteen songs of son, bolero and danzón recorded in Havana by veteran Cuban musicians, produced by Ry Cooder.
Introducing...Rubén González 1997 · World Circuit
The pianist's own album, recorded at the end of the Havana sessions as a series of descargas.
Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer 1999 · World Circuit
The singer's first solo album, recorded in Havana while Wim Wenders filmed.
Buena Vista Social Club at Carnegie Hall 2008 · live · World Circuit
The complete Carnegie Hall concert of 1 July 1998, released ten years later as a double album.
Lost and Found 2015 · compilation · World Circuit
Leftover Egrem studio tracks and later live recordings.

Songs

Chan Chan Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
Compay Segundo's four-chord son, which opens the album and became the group's signature.
El cuarto de Tula Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
An extended descarga in which Ochoa, Ferrer and Puntillita improvise lyrics.
Dos gardenias Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
The classic bolero, sung by Ibrahim Ferrer.
Veinte años Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
Omara Portuondo's bolero, sung by the only woman on the album.
Candela Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
Faustino Oramas's son, with Ibrahim Ferrer improvising through an extended descarga.
Buena Vista Social Club Buena Vista Social Club · 1997
The danzón that gave the project its name, built around Rubén González's piano.

Ry Cooder, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Afro-Cuban All Stars

Where to go next

Official

Buena Vista Social Club official site The group's own website.
World Circuit: Buena Vista Social Club The label's biography of the group and how the 1996 sessions came about.

Reference

PBS: Buena Vista Social Club Companion site to the film, with sections on the music and the musicians.
Library of Congress: Buena Vista Social Club essay Essay by Fred Metting for the album's National Recording Registry entry.
PBS song notes: Chan Chan Notes on the signature song.
PBS song notes: El Cuarto de Tula Notes on the extended descarga.
PBS song notes: Dos Gardenias Notes on the bolero and Ferrer's history with it.
PBS song notes: Viente Anos Notes on Portuondo's recording session.
PBS song notes: Candela Notes on Faustino Oramas's son.

Writing and criticism

The Guardian: the sweet sound of Cuba A 2015 feature on the farewell tour with Nick Gold and Omara Portuondo.
The Guardian: Hail, hail Buena Vista Social Club A writer's account of visiting Havana in 1999 with the album.
Rolling Stone review of the album Tom Moon's 1997 review, archived copy.

Interviews

PBS: Ry Cooder interview excerpts Cooder on the club's name, the film and the musicians.
Library of Congress: interview with Ry Cooder Cooder on making the record in Havana, from 2022.

Sources

Buena Vista Social Club, Wikipedia
Buena Vista Social Club (album), Wikipedia
Buena Vista Social Club (film), Wikipedia
Buena Vista Social Club: Adios, Wikipedia
Interview with Ry Cooder, Library of Congress (2022-04-25)
Buena Vista Social Club: the sweet sound of Cuba, The Guardian (2015-03-22)
Buena Vista Social Club, World Circuit Records