[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 110 (Wednesday, September 7, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1782-E1783]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      REMEMBERING THE LIFE OF CUBAN BOLLERO SINGER IBRAHIM FERRER

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. CHARLES B. RANGEL

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, September 7, 2005

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the life and 
legacy of legendary Cuban musician Ibrahim Ferrer, who died Saturday 
August 6, after suffering multiple organ failure.
  Ibrahim Ferrer was at the center of the Buena Vista Social Club, a 
phenomenon that brought long delayed international fame to a group of 
older Cuban musicians thanks to a Grammy-winning 1997 album produced by 
Ry Cooder and a subsequent film by Wim Wenders, both by that name. 
Besides offering American audiences a musician's-eye view of Cuba, the 
film created a recognition of Mr. Ferrer as an unlikely musical icon.
  Mr. Ferrer's story is particularly inspiring to me because it speaks 
to the limitless possibilities of talent and chance. He was a gifted 
musician but of all the larger-than-life personalities that make up the 
Buena Vista Social Club, Ibrahim Ferrer seemed the least likely to 
emerge as an international superstar. Yet within three years of his 
first international tours with the Afro-Cuban All Stars outside of Cuba 
in 1996, Mr. Ferrer was filling the world's great venues and receiving 
rapturous ovations from audiences for whom he had become the 
embodiment--the heart and soul--of the multimillion-selling Buena Vista 
phenomenon.
  Mr. Ferrer, a bolero singer who was compared to Nat King Cole, was 
born in Santiago in eastern Cuba on February 20, 1927, and began 
singing professionally in 1941. In the 1950s, he was an established 
singer who performed with well-known Cuban bands, including that of the 
legendary Benny More. But sadly, Ferrer was a forgotten name by the 
mid-1990s, supplementing a meager state pension by shining shoes. He 
was lifted from obscurity by the 1997 Buena Vista Social Club recording 
brought together by Texas guitarist Ry Cooder that shot a group of 
vintage Cuban musicians to international fame and an unexpected second 
career.
  Mr. Ferrer was a man who was full of life and energy. Even in his 
seventies he could still salsa dance with the best of them. He was a 
musical powerhouse and an animated figure that clearly enjoyed 
performing Cuba's traditional ``son'' music of the 1940s and 1950s for 
new generations of fans.

  I extend my condolences to his lovely wife and six children. Mr. 
Ferrer and his music are truly an inspiration to both Cubans and people 
throughout the world. His life and music are a testament to the 
vibrancy and resilience of Cuban people.
  Creating some of Cuba's most rhythmic and dynamic music, Mr. Ferrer 
accomplished an enormous feat because despite the constraints of the 
U.S. embargo, his music was able to break through and Americans 
responded to it with overwhelming enthusiasm. His life legacy as a 
musician demonstrate the kind of beauty and musical genius that can 
come out of a relationship with Cuba and it is my hope that the failed 
U.S. embargo against Cuba will be lifted soon to permit the enrichment 
of an enhanced cultural exchange to the benefit of the people

[[Page E1783]]

of Cuba and the U.S. Mr. Ferrer paved the way for generations of Cuban 
singers to come and it is my hope that their music will continue to 
reach the hearts of Americans and people throughout the world.
  I would like to submit for the Record an obituary from the August 8th 
edition of the New York Times.

               [From the New York Times, August 8, 2005]

 Ibrahim Ferrer, 78, Cuban Singer in ``Buena Vista Social Club,'' Dies

                            (By Ben Ratliff)

       Ibrahim Ferrer, the Cuban singer whose life included one of 
     popular music's most triumphant second acts, died on Saturday 
     in Havana. He was 78. The cause was multiple organ failure, 
     his manger, Carmen Romero, announced.
       Mr. Ferrer was at the center of the Buena Vista Social 
     Club, a phenomenon that brought long-delayed international 
     fame to a group of older Cuban musicians thanks to a Grammy-
     winning 1997 album produced by Ry Cooder and a subsequent 
     film by Wim Wenders, both by that name. Besides offering 
     American audiences a musician's-eye view of Cuba, the film 
     set up Mr. Ferrer as a particularly sympathetic figure--tall, 
     distinguished and lively, an excellent bolero singer who used 
     space and silence in his relaxed elegant delivery to increase 
     the drama, a man who had been rolled over by history and was 
     now simply trying to enjoy an absurdly lucky situation.
       At the time that he war enticed out of retirement to make 
     the album, Mr. Ferrer was living on a small state pension and 
     shining shoes in Havana for extra money.
       He was not interested in recording anymore; he had retired 
     from singing in 1991.
       ``An angel came and picked me up and said, `Chico, come and 
     do this record,' ``he said in 1998. ``I didn't want to do it, 
     because I had given up on music.''
       Born in 1927 at a social club dance in the eastern city of 
     Santiago de Cuba--his mother went into labor on a night out--
     Mr. Ferrer's first professional involvement with music came 
     at age 13, a year after he became an orphan, when he joined a 
     band, Los Jovenes del Son.
       Later he sang with groups that included Conjunto Sorpresa, 
     the Orquesta Chepin Choven (with which he had a local hit, 
     ``El Platanal de Bartolo,'' in 1955) and the Beny More 
     orchestra, with which he was a background vocalist; in 1953 
     he began working with Pacho Alonso's band, Maravilla de 
     Beltran, in Santiago. The band later moved from Santiago to 
     Havana and called itself Los Bocucos.
       For most of his career Mr. Ferrer generally sang uptempo 
     numbers, guarachas and sones, not the slow romantic boleros, 
     even though he loved them. But his chance finally came on 
     ``The Buena Vista Social Club,'' when Mr. Cooder and Juan de 
     Marcos Gonzalez, the album's musical director, persuaded him 
     to sing songs like ``Dos Gardenias,'' which he had learned 
     decades before when singing with More.
       In 1998, the Cuban Egrem label released ``Tierra 
     Caliente,'' an album of older songs he had made with Los 
     Bocucos. In 1999 the British World Circuit label (with 
     Nonesuch in the United States) released Mr. Ferrer's first 
     solo album, and in 2003 his second, ``Buenos Hermanos''; both 
     were produced by Mr. Cooder. In ``Buenos Hermanos'' Mr. 
     Cooder took more artistic liberties, stirring the very un-
     Cuban accordion and the gospel singing group the Blind Boys 
     of Alabama into the mix.
       Though by this time he was in his 70's, Mr. Ferrer won a 
     Latin Grammy for Best New Artist in 2000. ``Buenos Hermanos'' 
     won a Grammy for Best Traditional Tropical Latin Album of 
     2003, but Mr. Ferrer was denied a visa to enter the United 
     States for the awards ceremony last year.
       His last performance in New York was in April 2003. He was 
     on a European tour in the week leading up to his death.
       Mr. Ferrer is survived by his wife, Caridad Diaz, 6 
     children, 14 grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren, Ms. 
     Romero said.

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