José Manuel Solís Fernández

Cuban singer, pianist and composer who in 1960 founded the renowned Cuarteto Los Meme that dominated Cuba and its style throughout the 1960s. He has been an influential figure in Cuban popular music.

Meme Solís was born in the town of Mayajigua. His father, Manuel Solís, an Asturian, arrived in Cuba around 1913 or 1914, where he met his mother Balbina Fernández, Cuban, daughter of Spaniards as well, in Mayajigua. They fell in love and the father did not return to Asturias. He married Meme's mother and it was a very beautiful story, sixty-five years of marriage.

The father and mother had a small hotel, the only one in Mayajigua. On the upper floor was the house, made of masonry (most houses were wooden) and on the lower part a grocery store that burned down. Then they moved to Santa Clara, where they looked for a large house to lodge young women guests, many of them cousins who came from Mayajigua.

At six years of age he began piano studies at the Rita Chapú Conservatory in Santa Clara. At a young age he performed as a pianist accompanying singer Olga Guillot at the Cloris theater in that city, where he also studied at the Normal School for Teachers.

In 1958 he moved to Havana. He began his professional career as accompanist to singer Fernando Albuerne in the Caribe Salon of the Havana Hilton hotel and he connected with composers and performers linked to the feeling style, a trend that marked his musical production.

He worked as an accompanying pianist for the D'Aida quartet, Esther Borja, the Hermanas Lago, Xiomara Alfaro, the Las Capellas duo, mezzo-soprano Alba Marina, Rosita Fornés and Reneé Barrios, among other performers, in shows and performances in cabarets, nightclubs, radio and television.

He began performing alongside Elena Burke in theaters and nightclubs, work that earned him the attention of music critics.

He participated in 1959 as pianist and arranger in the long-playing record "La Burke canta," considered one of the best records the singer made throughout her career, with Guillermo Barreto on drums, Pablo Cano on guitar, Papito Hernández on bass and Ángel Semilla García on tumbadora. The production includes compositions by Solís: "Qué infelicidad," "Para seguirte adorando" and "Es una verdad quererte." During that time he was considered among the best accompanying musicians in the country.

With Elena Burke he appears on the record "Gemas de Navidad," which was distributed in late 1959 with the participation of Miguelito Cuní, the orchestra of Ernesto Duarte, Compay Segundo and his group, and Rolando Laserie.

Various performers began during that time to include his creations in their repertoire, such as Fernando Álvarez ("¿Cómo pude?") and Doris de la Torre ("¿Para qué ilusionarme?").

In 1960 he founded the Cuarteto de Meme Solís with Horacio Riquelme, Ernesto Martín and Moraima Secada, a group with which he made a long-playing record with an orchestra of 30 musicians. That same year the debut of other vocal quartets took place in Havana that would have outstanding careers, such as Los Modernistas, Cuarteto Del Rey, Voces Latinas and Los D'Enríquez.

The Cuarteto de Meme Solís toured throughout the country and became known, alongside numbers by the composer, Mexican boleros and versions of ballads, bossanovas and slow rocks. He made his television debut and immediately began to be hired to perform in nightclubs such as El Gato Tuerto, Saint John's, Club 21 and Tropicana. In 1961 entertainment columnists proclaimed it the best mixed quartet in Cuba.

In 1962 Meme Solís founded at Radio Progreso, along with Elena Burke and composer and singer Luis García (1936-2004) the daily program A solas contigo, which remained on that station's schedule (with Elena and other performers) for more than twenty years.

During the eight years in which Meme Solís performed in that space, works by Pablo Milanés, Marta Valdés, Ela O'Farrill, Piloto y Vera, and other Cuban composers from various generations premiered. The program served as a vehicle to popularize in Cuba the international repertoire that was then in fashion, such as ballads by Michel Legrand, Bert Kaempfert, and by Italian and Spanish composers. In the early years of that decade Solís introduced personnel changes to his quartet; Bobby Jiménez replaced Riquelme and Raúl Acosta replaced Martín.

In 1964 the quartet changed format and members again. From then on it became known as Los Meme and was acclaimed by the public as the most popular vocal group in the country. Farah María replaced Moraima Secada, Miguel Ángel Piña replaced Bobby Jiménez and Héctor Téllez replaced Raúl Acosta. They worked in shows at the main nightclubs, such as the Salón Rojo at the Capri hotel (Caperucita se divierte); Cabaré Continental at the Internacional hotel in Varadero (La Fornés en Varadero, Consuelito en el circo); Tropicana; Johnny's Dream; Copa Room at the Havana Riviera hotel; San Pedro del Mar in Santiago de Cuba; Rumayor in Pinar del Río; and Venecia and Cubanacán in Santa Clara.

During that decade Luis García brought to record his song "Distintos sentimientos"; the combo of Samuel Téllez, "No mires hacia atrás"; Oscar Martin, "Algo extraño"; Omara Portuondo with the combo of Juanito Márquez, "La felicidad"; and Georgia Gálvez, "Vida si pudieras".

With her song-ballad "Otro amanecer" Elena Burke was awarded at the Festival of Sopot, Poland. Los Meme premiered at the 1965 Varadero Festival, by Piloto y Vera, "Sólo tú y yo," which won the performance award. The quartet performed concerts at several venues in the capital, such as the Amadeo Roldán theater and the Hebrew Community theater and participated as guest in recitals by other performers.

The long-playing record Otro Amanecer, Los Meme, with orchestra conducted by Rafael Somavilla, contains some of Solís's most accomplished compositions, such as "Ese hastío," "En la distancia" and "Fue tu bendición." The album contains a mozambique, a guaracha-chá, a ballad by Michel Legrand, the Italian song by Leo-Carmi "El torrente," and a medley of songs by José Antonio Méndez performed by voices and piano, as was usual in the Havana clubs where "feeling" was made.

While directing and performing with his quartet, Meme Solís organized numerous musical shows for theater, television and cabaret for which he wrote numerous scores.

He is the author of the musical theme that still identifies the internationally famous Tropicana. For the show that launched Omara Portuondo's solo career (1967) he composed "Te dije quédate" (lyrics by Olga Navarro) and "La orquídea," a ballad that later Solís included in his last long-playing record recorded in Cuba. On that album appear other works of his that achieved great popularity: "Traigo mi voz," "Y como sea," "Destino de los dos" and "Estos días de lluvia".

In 1969 he decided to dissolve the quartet and emigrate with his family, for which reason the Cuban government cut off the distribution of his work in the media. He worked for a time as a laborer in a cardboard box factory, although he continued composing songs that were performed by Elena Burke, Ela Calvo, Rosita Fornés, Doris de Goya, Las Capellas and others, among them "Sin un reproche" and "Amor ayúdame".

He formed, without his name appearing, the quartet Los Cuatro, with a style similar to that of Los Meme and in the same way made music and arrangements for shows, such as La Fornés tridimensional. A few years before traveling to Spain in 1987, he made public presentations in some Havana nightclubs, such as the Club Atlántico de Santa María del Mar and performed alongside composer Tania Castellanos and the quartet Los Cuatro in various cabarets and theaters on the island.

He settled in New York, a city where he continued his musical work and recorded several records, as a soloist and with vocal groups. Along with Luis García and Malena Burke he made two compact discs titled A solas contigo. For a decade he kept on the air the radio program El Show de Meme Solís. He produced a compact disc by Argentine singer Libertad Lamarque and another by Olga Guillot.

He has performed on artistic tours in Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Santo Domingo. In the United States he has done seasons in Broadway theaters with shows such as Nostalgia Tropical (1993); Serenata Antillana (1994); Cuba Libre (1995) and Habana under the sea (2003). He has participated in and organized concerts in which Celia Cruz, Paquito D'Rivera, Xiomara Laugart, Maggie Carlés, Pancho Céspedes, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Isaac Delgado, Argelia Fragoso, Annia Linares and Mirta Medina, among others, have performed.

Awards and Recognition
Among the recognitions he has received are: Keys of the County and City of Miami 1988; ACRIN Award, 1988, 1989, 1991 and 1996; Gold Medal "Manolo Álvarez Mera"; Award for Human Values, 1988 and 1990; Gloria de Cuba Award, 1990; Award Hoy como ayer-Tradición Cubana, 2000; and La Montaña, 2001. An anthology of the musical work he did with his quartet during the 1960s received the Cubadisco Award 2010 in Havana.