Fidel Castro
In April 1982, I was asked to perform the opening concert at the International Guitar Festival in Havana, Cuba. At my request, Pierre Trudeau sent a note of introduction to Fidel Castro, along with a Spanish Fantasy album. It was rather presumptuous to expect the leader of a country to rearrange his schedule just to hear me pluck a few strings, but my “nothing ventured, nothing won” philosophy prevailed.
The night before departing for Havana, I won my second Juno Award for Instrumental Artist of the Year. Wearing an exquisite white sequined gown, which the CBC had had specially designed for the occasion, I performed a medley of solo pieces in a dreamlike sequence on a circular rotating set enveloped in clouds of dry ice — a complete contrast to the preceding rock act, Rough Trade. Afterwards, CBS personnel insisted that I visit their hospitality suite to rub shoulders with the media people. Fading fast and against my better judgment I choked my way through two hours shouting at the top of my voice to be heard above the ear-splitting rock music. Journalists thrust their microphones at me for comments, while CBS brass crowded in for photos and future album suggestions. Exhausted, I sank into the sheets around three in the morning, after hanging up the lovely white gown in my closet and thinking, One day this will make a perfect wedding dress.
The next morning, my throat was so sore that I could hardly swallow. Flying over the Caribbean, I cursed myself for lacking the willpower to decline CBS’s hospitality. On our arrival at Havana’s Hotel Nacional, Mother and I were assigned a small, humid room, where I dosed myself with erythromycin and collapsed into bed. How wretched I felt — certainly in no state to rehearse for my upcoming performance, which was to be televised live all over Cuba. It was imperative that I recover, as a Canadian film company was planning to shoot a documentary film of my visit. My solicitous mother ran around the hotel trying to find fresh fruit juice and a better room, but nobody showed any concern in the pandemonium generated by the festival. A feverish night ensued as I tossed around in a lumpy bed thinking evil thoughts about the Junos, CBS, rock music, and smoke, and vowed never to jeopardize my health in this way again.
“Would you please agree to play for Fidel Castro at the Canadian embassy tonight?” a crackly voice shouted the next morning over the static on the telephone. I knew I could not refuse, even though in my stupor I was unable to sit up without feeling dizzy. This could be the opportunity of a lifetime! Pierre had kept his promise to send my album; now it was up to me to deliver. Restringing my guitar and struggling to wash my hair, I tried to ignore the swollen throat and fever while my mother desperately massaged my sore shoulders and fed me cups of honeyed tea in the overwhelming heat. At around five in the afternoon, an embassy car drove us to the elegant residence of the Canadian ambassador — “Our man in Havana.” There was seating for about sixty people in a reception hall, where a low stage decorated with flowers had been constructed. As I checked the chair and footstool position, it became apparent that armed guards were taking up positions around the house. “This is a sure sign Fidel is planning to attend,” the ambassador told me excitedly. “But we won’t know until the last minute whether he will actually show up.”
Five minutes before my recital was to begin, the legendary leader came striding into the embassy, accompanied by his small entourage. Lowering himself into one of the front-row seats, he listened attentively as I played a selection of pieces including “Guajira,” “Campanas del Alba,” and “Gran Jota de Concierto.” Whenever I am unwell during performances, an amazing thing occurs — I become oblivious to any debilitating symptoms; cramps, sore throats, and fever miraculously vanish during my playing. When I surrendered to the music, my nose stopped running and my voice rang clear as I made the Spanish introductions. Fidel clapped enthusiastically and I noticed his foot marking time to the rhythms of the jota. I had seen him so often on television newscasts, but now his dark bushy beard, green khaki army fatigues, rimmed glasses, and commanding presence were just a few feet away. I played with as much expression and feeling as I could muster, enjoying the sensual sounds that my fingers were sending out into the sultry Havana evening.
After the recital, my mother and I were ushered into a private room, where the ambassador and his wife were talking to Fidel and his compatriots. He was charming. Suddenly, he was a real person to me — a Latino man with twinkling brown eyes and a big smile.
“Venga. Siéntate aquí junto a mi,” he said, motioning to the empty space on the couch beside him. “I loved your playing,” he enthused, examining my Ramírez guitar, and spinning a globe of the world as I indicated the places where I had played. “White … horse,” he articulated carefully, as my fingers traced a line up to the Yukon. He held my hands, scrutinizing my fingernails while I explained their importance in classical guitar playing. Fidel nodded with interest. “Ah, but you must have Spanish blood in you, to interpret the Latin composers with such emotion,” he insisted. My mother sat across from us, amused that her daughter was subjecting the renowned leader to a Spanish culled from the streets of Mexico.
Fidel expressed interest in my family. “Damien is studying genetic engineering at the university,” I explained; he nodded in approval, asserting that this was one of the most exciting sciences of the future. “Here in Cuba, we believe in supporting medical research as much as we can, given our limited resources.” Fidel, as the Cubans call him, broke into guffaws of laughter as he entertained us with amusing anecdotes, jumping out of his seat and gesticulating to his stories. This character, so full of levity, was a complete contrast to the stern dictator I had imagined meeting. “Britain has always had the best educational system in the world — just look at these Caribbean islands; everywhere the British settled, they set up a marvellous school system, which has lasted until now. Britain treated her colonies much better than did France or Spain, don’t you think?” I was surprised by his diplomatic appreciation of my native land. Fidel and his companions ate and drank only from special platters brought into the embassy by his own staff. Too many attempts on his life had made him fear the poisoned food and exploding cigars attributed to the CIA.
Two hours slipped by as a haze of smoke filled the room. Feeling relaxed and free of concert adrenalin, I found my “Juno cold” returning with a vengeance; my nose began to run and both eyes started to redden and water. “Estas enferma, pobrecita? (Poor dear, are you sick?)” he inquired, putting his arm around my shoulder. Now, telling Fidel Castro to butt out his Montecristo would have been tantamount to asking Winston Churchill to do likewise. It just wasn’t done! “Oh, it’s just a bit of a cold I caught in Canada,” I sniffed, blinking rapidly to try to wash the smoke from my eyes. “You must take lots of fruit and Vitamin C,” he advised. “I eat royal jelly, the food made by the queen bee for her workers. We’ve done research here into its health benefits,” he continued. Smiling at him through his cloud of aromatic smoke, I agreed to try his remedies. Most of the guests had drifted out of the residence by the time we emerged from our enclave, but the TV cameras were patiently waiting for their leader’s departure. An affectionate farewell kiss on both cheeks from El Jefe was caught by the national television news and inspired people to rush up the following day to greet “the girl Fidel had kissed”! The Cubans we met seemed to worship their charismatic leader.
The next morning, a miracle occurred: two smiling porters came to help us change rooms, and a car and driver were put at our disposal. My mother and I were transferred to a palatial suite whose enormous curved balcony overlooked the water. I could not help wondering how many distinguished guests had paced those stone floors both before and after the Cuban Revolution. Sea breezes cooled us, the beds felt wonderful, and the spacious rooms, the chandeliers, and antiques were a welcome change from our previous quarters. “Fruit for la señorita,” the compañero said as a trolley bearing enough fruit for a small grocery store arrived at our door: pineapples, coconuts, papayas, crates of oranges, mangoes, and mamey — more than we could possibly eat. I recalled how Fidel had said that fruit could cure my cold. But having so much lavished on me while ordinary Cubans were rationed made me feel guilty. When I remembered Margaret Trudeau’s experience of wishing out loud for a glass of orange juice and having it appear five minutes later at the doorway, my mother and I made a point of directing loud conversations at the walls, presuming our regal accommodations must surely be bugged. I was highly impressed with Cuba and the warmth of her people. At that time, prostitution and drugs had been eradicated. Before the Revolution, Batista’s Cuba had been sinking in a morass of decadence. It is well known that most of the Cubans in the U.S. would like to see the end of Fidel, but in 1982 I was left with a favourable impression of both the man and his accomplishments.
I played, in spite of my persistently high temperature, to a capacity audience crammed into the Teatro Nacional. Fifteen minutes before the concert, I realized that I had forgotten the elastic “bobbles” necessary to hold my hair in place, and I had to send my panic-stricken mother rushing by taxi back through Havana at breakneck speed to retrieve them from our hotel room. She returned breathless, only seconds before curtain time. The oppressive humidity in our dressing room had rendered hot curlers useless and the bass strings of my guitar soggy. Later, viewing the footage, I was amazed at how together everything sounded and looked, in spite of my bedraggled state and the backstage adrenalin attack prior to the concert. The program included Sor’s “Magic Flute” variations, Alonso de Mudarra’s “Fantasía,” and “Guajira” by Pujol, which I dedicated to Cuba’s famous old poet of the revolution, Nicolás Guillén, whom I visited the following day. The concert was broadcast into thousands of Cuban homes and parts of it were incorporated into a documentary called Liona in Havana, shown by the CBC.
Like “mad dogs and Englishmen,” we filmed the documentary “in the noonday sun.” Why had I not brought along a second, cheaper guitar on which to afflict such abuse, instead of my best Ramírez? The Canadian-Cuban production was hopelessly disorganized: no assistance for makeup, hair, or wardrobe; the script presented two minutes before action; and no help as my mother and I dragged the heavy guitar case along Havana’s streets of decaying colonial architecture. My favourite scene involved a choir of smiling children singing “Guantanamera” as they sat in a circle around me on the lawn of the Teatro Nacional de Cuba.
The minister of culture hosted a farewell evening at the Tropicana Club, where, under a full moon, we watched sensuous dancers pulsate like spangled birds of paradise to salsa rhythms along swaying catwalks encircled by tall trees. An honorarium given to me by the Cubans was spent at one of the artists’ workshops on a selection of etchings that still hang in my house today. The Cubans are such a vibrant and resourceful people, with a passion for the arts. If only politics did not divide the peoples of the world, we would all be so much richer.
The cultural attaché to the High Commission of Canada in Hong Kong booked me a tour of the Far East in October 1984. Anticipating an unusual and exciting itinerary, I invited my mother and two girlfriends from Vancouver, Dale and Susan, to tag along. Our first stop was Beijing — imperial city of temples and ancient dynasties — whose population of ten million filled the streets with seamless rivers of bicycles. The presence of several blond Western women did nothing to arouse their curiosity, since neither smiles nor frowns greeted us. We were met with only indifferent glances as we dodged precariously between bicycle wheels in an effort to cross the road. My lungs grumbled from the air, which was severely polluted from burning coal fires and factory emissions.
After fording the main thoroughfare, we were enticed to the back streets, where dusty apple-pears and bundles of bok choy were for sale. No music was being played in the little store fronts or living rooms into which we peeked. Everyone seemed diligently at work, but why wasn’t there at least a song on the radio to accompany their chores? Perhaps music did not play a significant role in the daily life of the Chinese.
We were accommodated in the week-old Hotel Toronto, where, walking from the marbled lobby to the refuge of our rooms, we were greeted by “Goo mornings” from beaming staff, all proud of their new positions, starched uniforms, and curled hair. This courteous routine, amusing at first, almost drove us up the mirrored walls by the end of our stay!
Fortunately, I had been forewarned that audiences in China had a fondness for shuffling around and talking during concerts. This cultural tradition can be disconcerting for a guitar recital, where the sound is so delicate. Perhaps because of these distractions, I did not give them my best performance, but after the last encore a crowd of guitar students greeted me, insisting I critique their playing, and suddenly I was conducting an impromptu master class in the green room. The students could not have had many such opportunities, as their level of playing was quite rudimentary, but it was only a matter of time before China’s energetic, determined population would be producing concert guitarists.
Some audience members asked me to autograph copies of my records, which had been obtained through Hong Kong. It was disappointing to learn that CBS had turned down an offer by China’s largest record company to sell my albums to their vast market, due to concerns over copyright infringement. A few years later, I was contacted by a Chinese doctor from Zhejiang who had started a fan club with more than two thousand guitar aficionados. The members of the Union for Madame Liona Boyd sent photos of their meetings that displayed a huge silk banner with my name on it. I parcelled off posters and new releases, receiving in return effusive letters, packets of green tea, and powdered pearl-dust. Such is their passion for the classical guitar.
The day after the concert, China’s ministry of culture held a lavish banquet in my honour. I was told that the gelatinous stringy material that comprised one of the portions on my plate was shredded duck web. During the long toasts and formal speeches that followed, I raised my glass and prattled on, expressing my pleasure in representing Canada and my hope that our two countries would increase artistic exchanges — all the usual diplomatic niceties expected of any self-appointed cultural ambassador.
The next day was the obligatory drive to the Great Wall. After motoring us past hordes of peasants cycling to work and countless horse-drawn carts driven by men in straw coolie hats, our chauffeur waited in the parking lot while we explored a small portion of that amazing construction. Thoughts of Kublai Khan and the Mongolian hordes filled my mind as I scanned the wall that was snaking its way into the distant hills. “No worry, ladies, I remember you by leather handbags,” the driver assured us. How amusing to realize that, for him, our bags were our only distinguishing features.
After so much experience with international travel, I should never have set the alarm clock incorrectly for a critical morning flight to Hong Kong. We were calmly munching breakfast when the terrible truth dawned: our plane departed in one hour’s time! Packing up at breakneck speed, we made a mad dash for the hotel lobby, dragging and kicking our heavy suitcases without waiting for a bellboy. Trying to ask the smiling hotel doorman to locate the Canadian embassy car proved an exercise in futility, so I fled around the parking lot looking in vain for the maple leaf flag. There was not even a taxi to be commandeered. After ten minutes of sheer panic, I realized it was pointless; the drive to the airport alone would take more than forty minutes. We growled “Goo morning” to all the smiling elevator girls, and I made an embarrassed call to the cultural attaché. The news of our blunder threw the embassy into a tailspin, as flights from Beijing had been sold out for the next three weeks. I started to have visions of us stuffed into a boxcar on the railway to Shanghai. Of all places in the world to miss a flight! China was opening up to the West, and the businessmen rushing in and out with briefcases full of deals caused planes to be routinely over-booked. However, through much persistence and elbow-shoving at the airport terminal, we miraculously secured tickets for the next day flight to Hong Kong via Tianjin, connecting to Singapore and finally to Jakarta. My brazen bribes of guitar brooches and tapes had worked their magic on the waitlist official.
While we passed from northern hemisphere to southern, I thought of the title Persona for the planned new album. Ideas for musical themes or lyrics to songs often come to me while airborne; maybe the sensation of disconnection from the world below helps stimulate the creative process. After flying over the equator, we finally descended to the steamy island of Java, one of the world’s most densely populated areas. Jakarta sweated like a sumo wrestler in mid-bout, the street markets colourfully alluring after the drabness of China. Our luxurious Hilton Hotel rooms were perfumed by exotic flowers, strange fruits, and a foot-long guitar of sculpted chocolate, decorated with creamy truffles and marzipan rosette! This exquisite culinary masterpiece, created for me by the hotel’s Swiss chef, guaranteed that we would not suffer any weight loss in Indonesia! After the hard single beds of Beijing, Jakarta’s soft and pillowy mattresses were much appreciated by our travel-weary bodies. We awoke revivified, ready to indulge in a deliciously decadent breakfast of sweet papayas and chocolate fingerboard.
I played to a packed concert hall, attended two Canadian embassy receptions, and conducted a master class at the Jakarta Arts Institute. Sixty eager students were crammed into a stuffy corridor where, holding court like an elder statesman, I answered questions about the guitar. The levels of playing were amazingly high. How pleasantly surprising to hear the “Chaconne” and “Nocturnal” coming from the competent fingers of young pupils. Several students presented The Best of Liona Boyd cassettes for autographs, but on closer examination, I noticed many of the titles listed were pieces I had never recorded! The cover appeared normal, but what were titles like “Bridge over Troubled Water” doing there? “All our tapes are pirated, so the contents aren’t very accurate,” the students chuckled. I was horrified to discover that my playing had been combined with that of some unknown guitarist and packaged under my name. There and then I decided not to let my published music book, entitled First Lady of the Guitar, fall into the hands of a pushy guitar teacher who kept trying to grab it for “photocopies.” I could already see thousands of duplicate copies filtering around the guitar libraries of the Far East. These pirated books and tapes invariably find their way back to the North American and European markets, where each year artists, composers, and publishers lose millions in unpaid royalties.
Our next stop took us northward one degree from the equator to spark-ling Singapore, so well laid out and so neatly “British.” We were given a spacious apartment and sprawled the humid contents of our suitcases around. Feeling once again like a political pundit, I conducted a press conference while a dozen newspaper reporters and various TV interviewers fired questions. How amazing that a classical guitarist would generate such media attention. My recital in the convention centre was sold out and the promoters were delighted by the rave reviews. During a master class with some local players, I tried to impart technical and musical advice as I remembered Lagoya and Bream doing during my student days.
In my free time, I padded barefoot with my mother around an Indian temple, where gaudily painted gods glared at us from cobra heads; bargained for silk on Arab Street; and sipped Singapore slings at the Raffles Hotel bar, where W. Somerset Maugham penned his novels of the British Empire. Venturing into the Bugis Street night market, we sampled fried rice and spicy vegetables at steamy stalls where, to my dismay, caged reptiles awaited their destiny on the dinner plate. Fruit vendors shared the pavement with pirated-tape hawkers; fortunately, my titles were not in evidence. After midnight, Bugis Street transforms into a colourful transvestite hangout, but unfortunately, it is impossible to experience everything on a concert tour!
Precipitously descending between thunder peaks bruised with dark shades of violet, we landed in Bangkok and made our way to the hotel through the muddy, flooded streets. Once again, our rooms were laden with flowers and fruit baskets overflowing with melons, papayas, rambutans, passion fruit, and pineapples. My concert was staged in the Hilton Hotel ballroom, and the cream of Bangkok society had been invited by the Canadian embassy. Bejewelled women in gorgeous silk gowns glided gracefully along the corridors, trailing gossamer wraps and oriental perfumes, while suave Thai businessmen and politicians sipped sherry with their Canadian hosts. I winced as, for a few unnerving moments before the performance, my mother plunged everyone into darkness, fusing the lights by plugging my hotpot into an incompatible electrical socket.
Bangkok enthralled me. Fragile bamboo homes supported by high wooden stilts lined the Chao Phraya River and the narrow canals that drained into it. A noisy confusion of barges, tugs, fishing craft, ferries, and speedboats plied the waterways for pleasure and commerce. Shopping in the bazaars and floating markets, we admired the exquisite temples that appeared around each bend of the majestic brown river, where laughing young boys dived naked from the bridges. At the Temple of Dawn, decorated by hundreds of carvings of Buddha, we eavesdropped on saffron-robed monks chanting their prayers. And at the Palace of the Emerald Buddha, we marvelled at mosaics of pure gold. This was one wonderful concert tour!
As evening fell, we investigated the infamous Patpong, where my Vancouver friends were swept up in a shopping frenzy for fake Rolex watches. Jostling kids tried to flog marble Buddhas, bronze temple dancers, Fendi wallets, and their sisters, while from the doorways, ladies of the night solicited customers. What a cauldron of humanity! The colour and vitality of the scene caused me to suspend my judgment momentarily, and I almost forgot that this thrall of desperate enterprise cloaked so much human degradation.
After Bangkok, my girlfriends departed for emerald-bartering adventures in the Golden Triangle, but for me, another concert hall awaited in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia. One recital at the city hall was a fundraiser for an organization that assisted abandoned women, and a second took place at the Petaling Jaya Hilton. After each show, I was loaded down with so many bouquets of flowers that there was no alternative but to float them in the bathtub.
The streets of Kuala Lumpur displayed a fascinating mixture of racial origins and dress: veiled Muslims, saried Indians, and saronged Malays. My mother and I respectfully wrapped scarves around our heads before entering a huge mosque, where devout followers of Islam were performing their ablutions, but an old doorman thrust black robes into our hands, pointing disdainfully at our bare shoulders. Before we left, we visited weaving factories, coconut plantations extracting palm oil, and a workshop where brightly coloured butterflies, beetles, and scorpions caught by the hill tribes were being entombed in Plexiglas. Damien would have been in seventh heaven.
In Hong Kong, we stayed at the home of Randy Stansfield, the Canadian diplomat who had helped orchestrate this tour. Forfeiting our luxurious Hilton suites for his children’s bedroom, which was stuffed with our suitcases and his kids’ toys, was an adjustment, but Randy proved a charming host. At the exclusive Aberdeen Marina Club, we enjoyed the spectacular Hong Kong skyline by night: twinkling lights flashing coloured neon onto the sampans and scintillating harbour waters like one of those gaudy paintings on black velvet. My concert, which was broadcast by the major classical station, started a little late, as one of my fingernails broke off a minute before showtime; only hastily applied Krazy Glue and a players nail saved the day!
After a 5:00 a.m. wake-up call to appear on Good Morning Hong Kong, I squeezed in a couple of radio shows and newspaper interviews and then was whisked off by hydrofoil to the Portuguese island colony across the Pearl River delta. Macau’s cobbled streets, winding sleepily up the hillside to a colonial fortress, were reminiscent of a lethargic Portuguese fishing village. My concert was held in the Dom Pedro V Theatre, where their usual evening fare was the raunchy “Crazy Paris” show. Randy later recounted how a group of Chinese businessmen had come creeping into the theatre, only to shuffle out moments later, muttering that I was taking too long to disrobe. A Bach bourrée–playing blonde must have seemed too tame an act compared with the striptease they had anticipated. The following day, we hovercrafted back through the island-dotted bay for another television show, where my playing was sandwiched between a parade of pink poodles and a panel on venereal diseases. Then we were swept back into the vortex of Hong Kong, one of the most congested and frenzied cities on the planet. This crossroads of the world is an international shopper’s paradise, where electronic gadgetry, jewellery, and fashion tantalize bargain-seekers. Two days of intense damage to the credit cards seemed a pretty good reward for my concert efforts.
My mother flew home to Toronto with bulging bags while I winged my way to Tokyo for a return tour of Japan. Aki, the road manager from the Kyodo Tokyo agency, dragged my suitcases and guitar around railway stations and airports. The Japanese promoters allowed minimal free time, cramming every minute with television shows or press interviews. Nagoya, Nagano, Sapporo, Yokohama, Osaka, and Fukuoka laid out the red carpet, and smiling and bowing guitar enthusiasts flocked to my performances. After I played a standing room only matinée at the Bach Hall Sendai, we found the road to the train station so gridlocked by the vehicles of my departing audience that Aki became panic-stricken, realizing that the last train to Tokyo was about to leave. What a terrible loss of face for him if I missed my plane to Vancouver later that night!
As soon as our driver approached the station, Aki and I raced at breakneck speed up three flights of steep stairs, hurling ourselves through the train doors seconds before they slammed shut. In Japan, land of efficiency, trains are never late. I cannot image how we made it after pulling in at only 4:28 for a 4:30 departure. For a few minutes, we lay sprawled on the benches of the compartment, completely winded by our superhuman exertion, while curious passengers peered from behind their magazines at the strange spectacle of a sweaty, red-faced Japanese man with two suitcases and a dishevelled blonde with red roses and a guitar. I panted and choked, trying to catch my breath as we sped along the tracks. Never had my heart pounded so rapidly as during that frenetic finale to my tour of the Far East.