Eliades Ochoa sang in La Maya

June 6, 2019

Eliades Ochoa reunited with his people last Sunday, hundreds of people answered his call for more than an hour with a repertoire that he shared with an audience knowledgeable and devoted to the work of this bard.

Eliades saw his people enjoying themselves despite the threat of rain that never came, fortunately for us. The Culture Department of Songo-La Maya, especially Yaritza Hardy and the JC project, once again placed Cuban music in the foreground. Eliades as protagonist of these circles, coming from enjoying the documentary about his story directed by American filmmaker Cynthia Biestek, a film that includes Benicio del Toro and Juan de Marcos González.

Minutes before the concert we had the fortune of giving him the book "Como Cuba puso a bailar el mundo" by Juan Carlos Roque García, a compendium of interviews and commentary that includes the presentation of the Buena Vista Social Club at the White House and dialogues with all the protagonists of that project which in 1996 captivated the planet. "Se soltó el Guajiro" is the title of the interview with Eliades.

The singer, with his black hat and mischievous smile, looked happily at the text where he himself cites his attachment to the most traditional music created on the island.

An emotional Eliades spoke of his friends, his land, of death: "You cannot miss people who sowed so much love. It is necessary to have Compay Segundo, because he lives in his songs, Chan Chan, Saludo Compay. All those songs that we sang as a duet, for me he was like a father, we came to have a very deep familiarity, he is always in our thoughts.

Eliades Ochoa decided that on the day of his death he would be buried in Alto Songo, it is a chilling subject, however the singer takes it with humor: "I always say that one has to die, what I don't like is the time we're going to be dead. Maybe the day I die I'll get brave and say to him; tell me, what's wrong with you?, maybe I have to tell my wife to give me diazepam until the last minute".

He said it amid laughter, Eliades Ochoa is not a smoker like Compay and maintains a very active work schedule like his colleague Omara Portuondo. The two of them have survived that project which was driven by Wim Wenders and Juan de Marcos González. Eliades undoubtedly continues to be a guajiro.

"I am from the hill of the wasp, Songo-La Maya. When I said I wanted to make my vault here, there were people who said it had to be where Ñico Saquito, Compay were... that maybe in the distant future, when I was gone physically, tourists would want to go and I told them if they wanted to go they should come to Songo, that if it's raining, even better, and I convinced them, and they gave me the space, I told the cemetery workers to put a black hat, a guitar and the epitaph that says: 'I am as never before'.

The Buena Vista Social Club already has more than 20 years, Eliades is rescheduling his work, he is already with his group, continues under the Egrem banner and at this moment announces many concerts to see people, to be live with the Patria in his homeland. This time it was in Songo-La Maya, his place of origin, a place that welcomed him for more than an hour in a succession of titles chanted by the crowd.