Celina Gonzáles, the “Queen of musica campesina”—the rural roots of salsa and son— was arguably the most influential Cuban vocalist in the world. A staunch supporter of the Cuban revolution, in the late 1950s Gonzáles wrote songs championing the Communist cause of Fidel Castro. But the greatest contribution to her country, however, is the music she writes and performs that transcends politics and incorporates what are some of Cuba’s finest treasures: Afro-Cuban rhythms. These are rhythms influenced by the African religious and musical elements brought by the sugar plantation slaves and fused with Spanish verse forms and melodies. The result is an exhilarating musical cross-pollination that helps to unify a multi-ethnic Latin American nation.
Gonzáles was born in 1928 in the small town of Jovellanos in Matanzas province, east of Havana. In her youth she moved to Santiago de Cuba, on the eastern tip of the island, and at age 16, she met Reutilio Dominguez, who would later become her husband and singing partner.
In Gonzáles’s early years with Dominguez, the pair’s powerful performances relied simply on guitar, bongo, and strong vocal harmony. Their successful and politically charged radio show in Santiago, in which they sang songs denouncing the government of President Batista, led to a contract with Saurito, the famous Havana radio station. In the 1950s, Gonzáles and Dominguez grew internationally famous, touring throughout the Caribbean and performing with Beny MORE in New York.
After her husband’s death in 1970, Gonzáles sang with her son, Reutilio Junior. Together they joined the band Campo Alegre and updated their music through the use of trumpet, bass, congas, and marimba.
Cuba’s political isolation kept Gonzáles away from the international scene until the mid-1980s, when she began touring extensively, delighting huge crowds at music festivals in Latin America—especially in Colombia and Venezuela—and enchanting audiences in North America and Europe. Settling in a Havana suburb, she continued to broadcast regularly on radio. Gonzáles described the music that she played as the true folklore of Cuba, firmly rooted in the campesina tradition. She also continued to perform with Campo Alegre, striving to make her music “as danceable and tasty as salsa.”
Perhaps the best sampler of Gonzáles’s music is the album Que Viva Changó, a collection of 16 songs that offers a rich musical palette of guitar-driven guajira and pulsating Afro-Cuban rhythms conveying a variety of patriotic hymns, humorous lifestyle parables, and tender love paeans. Religion is also addressed in the collection, most notably in the song “Santa Barbara,” which expresses devotion to the Catholic saint and, at the same time, to the Yoruba god Changó. The song mirrors the way in which the two deities are fused in Santería, the Afro-Cuban religion that combines African Yoruba and Roman Catholic beliefs. The colours of Changó, the god of fire, thunder, and fighting, are red and white—colours that Gonzáles frequently favours in her onstage outfits. As in other Gonzáles’s songs, under “Santa Barbara’s” religious surface runs a pulsating dance rhythm.
Gonzáles’s voice, described by one critic as being full of “unbelievable verve and bluster,” fuses Santeria-inspired lyrics with guajira country music. Gonzáles’s music and Afro-Cuban rhythms inspired many other Cuban singers, including Albita Rodriguez and groups such as Sintesis.
Inez Andrea Gonzalez
SEE ALSO:
CRUZ, CELIA; CUBA; LATIN AMERICA; SALSA.
FURTHER READING
Ayala, Cristobál Diaz. The Roots of Salsa: The History of Cuban Music (New York: Excelsior Music, 1995);
Manuel, Peter, ed. Essays on Cuban Music: (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Al Guateque Con Celina;
Celina con Frank y Adalberto;
Fiesta Guajira;
Que Viva Changó.