Havana, Cuba. – He barely completed elementary education. Because of his natural talent as orchestra conductor, showman, foremost Sonero, troubadour, unique bolero singer and inspired soloist of his own compositions and others’; Benny More (1919-1963), is a "rare phenomenon of intuitive genius that has never been matched in the general context of our popular music.”
Bartolome Maximiliano More, which was his real name, composed, among other genres, Sones and guarachas, as well as boleros, as we will see herein.
In his beginning, still far from the success that would crown his professional life; he roamed Havana streets, parks, cafes, bars and cabarets. Bartolome sang over and over again: "My life is a crossword, / I do not know how I'm going to solve it, / that's why I go to the bar, / and I sing there…” So went “El bardo", bolero composed by him, which, according to Miguelito Cuni and others, was his first composition in the genre. However, someone else says otherwise. His cousin and compadre Enrique Benitez, “El Conde Negro”, musician like him, says bolero "Dime que si” was his first. The first lines went: "I cannot understand why you do not love me / singing my songs the way I sing, / songs that are born from my soul only for you, / my sweet love ...”
He came from Santa Isabel de las Lajas (former province of Las Villas), his beloved hometown, with his guitar strapped to his back. Bartolome came to Havana in 1940. Five years later, he traveled to Mexico with Miguel Matamoros’ ensemble, A few days after his arrival in Mexico, on August 25, 1945; he married Margarita Bocanegra-Duran, a former nurse from Queretaro, with whom he had a daughter: Virginia.
As for the origin of her husband's artistic name, Margarita said years later: "Since he liked Benny Goodman's music so much and I knew he was going to be a great artist, I decided to combine Benny with More.” Ever after and forever, the public, his unconditional fans, knew and admired him under this name: Benny More.”1
Two of the most popular boleros he wrote were inspired by his Mexican wife: "Mi amor fugaz" and "Dolor y perdon”:
Para qué perder el tiempo
Para qué volvernos locos
Si tú sabes que nosotros
No nos comprendemos ya.
Tengo fe en que tú comprendas
Como yo lo he comprendido
Que nuestro amor se ha perdido
Como una estrella fugaz…
He sang "Dolor y perdon" to Margarita: «Te he pedido perdón con el pensamiento, / te he pedido perdón, / vida, sin saberlo tú, / y es tan grande la pena que llevo en mi existencia, / que no sé, / no sé si es posible resistir el dolor…».
"This brilliant singer," Jose Loyola said, "had the merit of being able to change the color of his voice, which he handled like a virtuoso handles his instrument. In this way, he enriched the melodies”, Loyola added, “and made them more compatible with the dramatic discourse of the lyrics. I think Benny More assumed this attitude singing both his own compositions and those created by other authors.”
For the harmonic link between lyrics and melody, for the composer’s warm rendition, Benny’s; "Ahora soy tan feliz” is one of his boleros that I prefer. When I was still very young, I used to listen to him in the jukebox of Bar Fausto, on Ayestaran St: «Soy tan feliz, / mi vida, / siempre que estás conmigo, / soy tan feliz cuando te abrazas conmigo. / Haces de mí, / mi vida, / tan sólo con un beso, / un maniquí de amor y el embeleso. / Soy tan feliz por ese egoísmo de amor, / o tal vez sea que tengo temor, / de separarme de ti y perderte en un desliz…».
It is obvious that the sensitivity of a man who mastered the difficult art of writing a song by combining lyrics and melody vibrates in this piece. He always showed the intention of expressing his own experiences and those of others in his songs.
Other boleros, fruit of the fertile imagination of the unrivaled son of Santa Isabel de las Lajas were: "Conoci la paz”, "No te atrevas", "Todo lo perdí", "Perdí la fe", as well as "Amor sin fe" (bolero-mambo) and "Barbaro del Ritmo", a bolero-cha, jointly written with Rafael de la Paz.
Benny More lived several years in Mexico, where he recorded for RCA Victor label several boleros from 1945 to 1951, with Matamoros Ensemble, and Mariano Merceron’s, Rafael de Paz’s, Chucho Rodriguez’s and his own orchestra. With Damaso Perez-Prado, he basically recorded mambos, while, in 1952, he sang with Ernesto Duarte’s Orchestra. Benny was deeply influenced by all these great musicians, and he used what he learned from them with his own Banda Gigante, a jazz band founded by him in Havana, in 1953.
While he lived in Mexico, from 1946 to 1950, Benny became a very relevant artist, little by little. He was featured in the films Carita de cielo, Ventarron, Novia a la medida, Fuego en la carne, Cuando el alba llegue and Quinto Patio. In El derecho de nacer (1951), his voice was only heard in off. Years later, in 1956, in the Cuban-Mexican co-production No me olvides nunca, directed by Juan J. Ortega; Benny sang Pedro Vega’s bolero "Hoy como ayer." ²
The presence of bolero in his repertoire, both as magnificent and unique singer, or as an author of compositions of the genre, is quite remarkable.
Cesar Pagano, a Colombian researcher, argues that Benny More "became one of the forerunners of contemporary bolero because he introduced jazz, its innovative inflections and its attachment to the current of Feeling". Therefore, it is no chance that there are two boleros in his discography, written by Luis Yañez and Rolando Gomez, the foremost binomial of the Feeling Movement. I mean "Oh, vida" and "Me miras tiernamente."
I have found in the sources consulted in my research a sum of 60 boleros in Benny More’s repertoire. They were composed by 38 authors (one of them anonymous), plus 11 that he himself composed, including a bolero-cha ("Barbaro del Ritmo") and a bolero-mambo ("Amor sin fe"). Therefore, according to my data, a total of 71 compositions, make up his collection of boleros, genre that he embraced throughout his career with such great taste. If, as other authors say, El Barbaro del Ritmo made 200 recordings (including non-Cuban musical genres, such as merengue, plena and porro), the weight of bolero in his discography can be easily comprehended. The genre stands for 35.5 % of everything he recorded.
"Qué te hace pensar" and "Tu me sabes comprender", two tremendous, awesome boleros, were allegedly the fruit of their author, Ricardo Perez-Martinez’s great infatuation. The magic was absolute when an inspired Benny sang: «Alma mía, / qué te hace pensar que no te quiero, / si tu amor es la fuente que me inspira a vivir y sentirme tan feliz…».
On the other hand, "Tu me sabes comprender" in off played a dramatic role in the soundtrack of “Fresa y Chocolate”, a 1993 movie, directed by Tomas Gutierrez-Alea and Juan Carlos Tabio: «No existe un ser igual que tú, / vida, / que me sepa comprender…».
Composer Ricardo Perez-Martinez recalls that when Benny came to Havana "He went crazy with the musical atmosphere that prevailed in the neighborhoods of Atares, Los Sitios, Belen, Cayo Hueso and El Cerro.” In the 1950’s, Benny was already famous in the jukeboxes of Havana neighborhoods and throughout the country; also through the radio and in the homes where there were record players. The boleros of Jose Dolores Quiñones: "Que me haces daño"; Jose Claro Fumero’s “Hebras de plata”; Jose Slater Badan’s “Por ser como tu eres”; Alberto Barreto’s “Corazon rebelde”; Armando Beltran’s “Dulce desengaño”; and Ernesto Duarte’s “Como fue”; - these are only a few examples - were part of the environmental sonority of the time.
From those days we have other classics in Benny’s voice: Emma Elena Valdelamar’s "Mucho corazon"; Pedro Vega’s “Hoy como ayer”; Rey Diaz-Calvert’s “Tu me gustas”: Juan Arrondo’s “Que pena me da”; as well as his impeccable duets with Pedro Vargas ("Perdon” and Obsesion"), written by Pedro Flores; "La vida es un sueño" and "Solamente una vez”, (by Arsenio Rodriguez and Agustin Lara, respectively), and with Venezuelan Alfredo Sadel ("Alma libre", by Juan Bruno Tarraza.
Since my early youth, I was familiar with Benny’s overall work; that is, I knew his projection in all genres and, even when I was very young, as salesman at “La Estrella” department store, I sold many records in 78 and 45 rpm, as well as his long-plays “The most from Benny More”, under RCA Victor, and “Pare, que llego el Barbaro”, produced by Discuba. However, at that time, I missed two compositions that I have rediscovered while doing this piece research. I'm talking about Chucho Rodriguez’s boleros "Esta noche corazon" and "Sin razon ni justicia", recorded by Benny in 1951, with Mexican singer Lalo Montane and accompanied by Chucho Rodriguez’s own orchestra.
Notes:
Translated by Pedro A. Fanego
