Antonio Abad Lugo Machín

An interpreter of recognized prestige in the Spanish-speaking world, he is famous for his recreations of songs such as El manisero, Dos gardenias, and Angelitos negros. His record El manisero, recorded in 1930 accompanied by Don Aspiazu's orchestra for the Victor company in New York, constituted the first million-selling success in Cuban music.

A member of a poor family (of about fifteen siblings) from the Cuban town of Sagua la Grande, Antonio worked as a child in various trades. His parents were a Spanish emigrant, José Lugo Padrón, and a Cuban Black woman, Leoncia Machín. His paternal grandmother was from the Canary Islands. The artist remembers having been happy in his family, which was neither "very rich nor very poor." His passion for singing manifested itself very early. As a young bricklayer, he alternated his work with singing in the church, in theaters, and behind the silent film screen in his city. He even joined up to three times with groups of traveling musicians who passed through his city on their way to Havana.

It is said that one day the local priest heard him humming softly and invited him to sing at a party where he performed Schubert's Ave María; from then on his passion for opera grew. However, the environment in which he operated and the color of his skin were obstacles to his dreams at that time, so he decided on Cuban popular music, for his own good and that of his followers.

His beginnings took place with his integration into the Municipal Band of his native town as a clarinetist. He later moved to Havana where he worked in duos, trios, and septets, until he joined Don Aspiazu's orchestra with which he traveled to New York in 1930 where he recorded and popularized his first version of El Manisero by Moisés Simons.

Outside of Aspiazu's orchestra, Machín created his legendary quartet with which he continued reaping successes in New York, until in 1934 he moved to Europe to conquer London and Paris. Now with the Habana orchestra and the show La Noche de los Trópicos by Moisés Simons, he solidified his reputation in Montparnasse, the Côte d'Azur, and Cannes.

In 1943 he married María de los Ángeles Rodríguez in Seville. He brought some of his Cuban relatives to Seville. He performed in some nightclubs such as Shanghái (called, after the change of foreign names to Castilian names, Sala Bolero), earning twenty-five pesetas daily. His first success in Spain was Noche triste, a melodic fox recorded with the Mihuras de Sobré orchestra, which accompanied Machín in his early successes and from which he later separated. Other early successes were Cómo fue, Moreno, Amor sincero, etc. In 1947 his great success in Spain would arrive: the "Moorish song" Angelitos negros, converted into a bolero thanks to a musical arrangement in the sixties.

Two important composers in his career were the Cuban Oswaldo Farrés: author of songs like Madrecita, Toda una vida, No me vayas a engañar, Quizás, quizás, quizás, Ay de mi... and the Mexican Consuelo Velázquez: author of Bésame mucho, Será por eso, and Amar y vivir. Special mention deserves the only version of the Cuban Isolina Carrillo, which he turned into one of his great successes, Dos gardenias.

He traveled through Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, Italy, and Romania, and in 1939 he arrived in Spain to continue his successful career and, despite the difficulties of the post-war period, continued building his reputation until his death, which occurred in the capital of the Iberian country on August 4, 1977.

In Spain, with over sixty records recorded and with his "Cuarteto Machín," he achieved consecration thanks to an absolute adaptation to the country, as demonstrated by the much-quoted phrase that he was "the most Cuban of Spaniards and the most Spanish of Cubans."

In Spain, Machín found everything he was looking for and especially liked Madrid, Seville (where he found love), and Alicante, where he spent long seasons in his apartment at Playa de San Juan. He also frequently visited Barcelona, where he performed for the first time upon arriving in Spain, and today he is remembered by a monolith in the Plaza Vicenç Martorell in the Ciutat Vella district, next to the Plaça de Bonsuccés, where he was planning to move just before his death.

He practically started from the bottom and became a witness and soundtrack to the love stories of Spaniards in difficult times; his popularity grew until he was idolized like the great stars of copla music; his songs became part of the sentimental memory of several generations through radio.

Due to his serious and humble character, Machín was very well received in Spain of that era. He imposed his personal style on the bolero and even entered popular sayings with the expression "You move more than Machín's maracas."

In Alcalá de Guadaira (Seville) on June 7, 1977, he left the stage completely exhausted and could not return. It was his last performance. Machín died in Madrid on August 4, 1977, at his home on Calle General Mola (now Príncipe de Vergara), at the age of 74. He rests in the San Fernando Cemetery in Seville, where his compatriots and relatives remember him each year by sprinkling his tomb with Cuban rum and singing some of his boleros.

According to Alejo Carpentier: "In Machín, with a pleasant voice of rich sonorities, Creole genres find a conscientious interpreter and knower of their finest nuances. Author of a notable rendition of Simons' Manisero, Machín knows how to interpret with equal skill a thrilling rumba or a song full of nostalgia (...)."

Poet and musician Joaquín Sabina also had words of praise for this Cuban who spread his fame throughout almost the entire European continent, mainly throughout the Iberian peninsula.

He has said that in the final stage of Francoism, Spanish and Latin American exiles in the English capital raved about the Beatles, but ended up singing with him classical works in Machín's voice, such as: Dos gardenias, Toda una vida, and Angelitos negros, with the famous verses by Andrés Eloy Blanco and music by Manuel Álvarez.