Rafael Bacallao Hernández

Singer, composer, and stellar dancer, he was for 34 years the main attraction of the eighty-year-old Orquesta Aragón. In the radio or television studio, on the floor of a cabaret, on the stage of a dance hall, his feet glided with smoothness and unimaginable lightness. Elegance defies here the skill of that dancing man who amazed everyone. Those who consider themselves kings of the dance floor have tried to imitate him, without success.

Born in Cienfuegos, Felo Bacallao, as all Cubans remember him, began singing very young with guitarist Rafael Molina (author of "Como gota de Rocío"). At age 13 he joined the Arizona trio. He performed at La Corte Suprema del Arte in 1949.

He began in the orchestra of the flutist, also from Cienfuegos, Efraín Loyola. In the early fifties (January 1959) he settled in La Habana and became part of the Orquesta Fajardo y sus Estrellas.

On February 7, 1959 he joined the Aragón, the flagship orchestra of Cuban popular and dance music, and with them he remained throughout that group's most stellar moments. For three decades, his voice joined that of singer José Antonio "Pepe" Olmos, to form the duet of vocalists that established a unique timbre in the best of the Aragones' repertoire. In 1993 he decided to retire from artistic circles and moved to Venezuela.

Bacallao was, like so many other musicians who have nourished our joy, or have accompanied us through the hardships of common man, a magnificent popular artist. One of those to whom no one follows their first steps, because they do not imagine that that ordinary boy would become a vector of multitudinous joy.

What is known for certain is that he was a singer in Efraín Loyola's orchestra and in the early 59 he comes to La Habana and joins one of Fajardo's orchestras, until the latter decides to go to the U.S. By that time, Rafael Lay had realized that Bacallao was not only a good singer, to join with Pepe Olmo, but that he was also a brilliant cha-cha-cha dancer and of whatever genres they put before him.

What follows is a brilliant story that lasted 34 years, during which the Orquesta Aragón became a model institution, according to the criteria put forward by specialists. There were many generations of Cubans who gathered at a popular dance with the Aragón, or heard it while going about other Sunday domestic activities, the Radio Progreso program, overseen by Ramón Álvarez Viejo, or had the repeated luck of seeing the classic charanga on television.

For the Aragón orchestra, Felo Bacallao meant one of the three voices best suited for this type of instrumental format. There has never been any charanga in Cuba and perhaps in no other country in America that has had three singers with such equal timbres. Bacallao was one of those artists who contributed, through that trio of voices, to the Aragón reaching vocal perfection. He was, moreover, an exceptional dancer who gave color to the orchestra, because with his movements and his way of dancing was quite a spectacle for all of us who saw him perform live or on television with this famous orchestra.

Felo, with the vocal backing of Rafael Lay himself, defined a timbre well-matched in the choruses, the unique mark of the band that was already stable at the famous Tropicana and that also toured more than sixty times through America, Europe and Africa.

With the cha-cha-cha as their banner, Felo and the Aragón alternated in the main venues and radio and TV stations of Cuba. They were the ones who accompanied the "Empress of the Danzonete" Paulina Alvarez in her last performance on May 18, 1965 and that same year they undertook their first tour of Europe, visiting France, Spain, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, the Soviet Union, Poland and Germany. On that tour, they were the first popular music orchestra to perform at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Hall in Moscow.

When the Aragón celebrated its 30th Anniversary, Felo participated in the tribute that the National Council of Culture paid to the orchestra at the Teatro Amadeo Roldán. In 1970 they visited Japan and in that decade they conducted various tours of Africa (Egypt, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Mali, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Congo, Algeria and Nigeria) and Latin America (visiting countries such as Mexico, Panama, Colombia and Venezuela).

In Caracas, Felo recorded the vocals for the album "Cuba es el son" by Cuban Tata Guerra y Los Matanceros, where the recently deceased Leo Pacheco also participated (who plays maracas and sings backup). He also participated in the Cultural Exchange of La Típica 73 in Cuba and in the series of albums by the Estrellas Areíto in the late 70's.

Starting in the 80's, the Aragón shared the stage with salsa singers like Oscar D'León and Andy Montañez and continued performing in venues like New York, America and Africa. Many changes occurred in the orchestra, from the death of conductor Rafael Lay to the retirement due to age or other reasons of several members, but Felo and Pepe continued to be the voices of the group.

Felo Bacallao had achieved recognition for having become the stellar figure of the front of Aragón's singers during its "golden age" (which are the twenty years from the early 60's to the early 80's), not only for his voice timbre but also for his particular way of dancing, which made the Aragón very striking on stage. Anecdotally, Felo recalls that in his early days he did not know how to dance and that it was a friend in the Arizona neighborhood of his native Cienfuegos who taught him, adopting those "special" steps to dance the cha-cha-cha.

When the Aragón celebrated its 50 years, they recorded a double album at the Caribe record label, in which volume two contains a song titled "Qué le pasa a Bacallao". Entering the 90's, the Aragón continued visiting venues like Colombia, although doing fewer recordings and in 1993 they traveled to Caracas. That year Felo decided to retire from the group and settle in Venezuela, leaving his position to his son Ernesto Bacallao Serrano.

Without fully retiring, Felo reduced his musical activity in his new residence, where he was honored and recognized for his trajectory. On the occasion of the Aragón's 60th anniversary, Bacallao accepted the invitation to sing a song in the production La Charanga Eterna, from 1999, where he alternates with other guests such as Omara Portuondo and Cheo Feliciano. His last album was La Bra Bra Sound, with musical direction by Venezuelan pianist Enrique "Culebra" Iriarte, released in 2002.

In recent months, it was learned that Bacallao was performing in various venues in Caracas and that he participated in the International Festival Eternos Boleros of that city in November 2004.

On the morning of Friday, May 13, 2005, a heart attack ended his life. There remain for remembrance an extensive discography with the still vigorous Aragón, in which he contributed his unique and special voice timbre, ideal for the charanga sound that, well into the 21st Century, continues fresh on the Latin music scene.

It was a revolution on stage, it was, according to musicologist María Teresa Linares: "The character of the Aragón" and she supports this by saying that "one of the people who gave the Aragón orchestra its tone, its style, its character, was Bacallao. Because he was not only a singer, a soloist, but also a member of the chorus, and because he developed a very special style of dance that typified and characterized the orchestra. The cha-cha-cha has its own very specific steps, but he would perform them gliding. That was not usual, although later some imitated him. He was a master at that. He gave a peculiar way of dancing the cha-cha-cha […]"