Genre
Cuban bolero and son. The compilation documents Machín's Spanish recording output during the 1940s, a period in which he was the dominant popular music presence in post-Civil War Spain, performing boleros, guarachas, and Afro-Cuban songs with his Cuarteto Machín against spare, intimate instrumental backing.
Release
Released in 2005 by Ramalama Music, Spain. A non-regravated archival compilation drawing on Machín's Spanish recordings from 1941 to 1947, the period immediately preceding his greatest Spanish hit, "Angelitos Negros" (1947).
Production
Archival compilation of original recordings; no re-recording was undertaken.
Reception
As a document of Machín's most intimate and historically significant Spanish period, the compilation is valued by collectors and scholars of Latin popular music in Spain as essential primary source material, preserving recordings that served as the sentimental soundtrack to a generation of Spaniards enduring the hardships of the early Franco era. Joan Manuel Serrat, among others, has acknowledged that Machín's songs brought solace and consolation to a people recovering from a brutal civil war.
Antonio Machín
Antonio Abad Lugo Machín (February 11, 1903, Sagua la Grande, Cuba – August 4, 1977, Madrid, Spain) was a Cuban-Spanish bolero and son singer widely regarded as one of the most significant figures in the history of Cuban popular music outside the island. The son of a Galician father and an Afro-Cuban mother, he began his career in Havana before moving to New York in 1930 with Don Azpiazú's orchestra, where "El Manisero" (The Peanut Vendor) became the first Cuban record to sell one million copies. After performing for President Franklin Roosevelt at the White House in 1933 and touring Europe, he settled in Spain in 1939 to escape the Second World War — and remained there until his death 38 years later. Performing under the title "His Majesty the Bolero," he became the soundtrack of postwar Spain, recording approximately 400 songs in Europe and an estimated 600 in total — making him one of the most recorded Cuban singers of the twentieth century, second only to Celia Cruz. His signature songs — "Dos Gardenias," "Madrecita," and "Angelitos Negros" — entered the collective memory of several Spanish generations. He had over 500 songs registered to his estate at his death.
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