Sierra Maestra

When nine friends, all students in various engineering faculties at Havana University, first decided to form a music group, they were thinking of maybe funk or something Brazilian, both so popular at the time. It was the father of the two brothers in the group, Juan de Marcos and Carlos González, who suggested they play son instead. Calling themselves Sierra Maestra after the birthplace of son in Eastern Cuba, the group quickly found they were on to a big hit. From 1976 onwards they were popular all over the island and their first album in 1980 was an island-wide success. Son was back, after a lull of some 40 years. Having revived it, the group became prize winners in Cuba, and started touring internationally.

Through the years Sierra Maestra have always mixed the classics of the Golden Age with newly written songs. As it happens it’s the new songs that have become their most popular. Now, with five of the original members still present, they have gone to great lengths to find young talented writers with new songs that are in this son tradition and style, but expressed in new musical and lyrical directions. The five musicians - Carlos Puisseaux, Alberto Valdés, Luis Barzaga, Eduardo Himely and Alex Suárez - who date back right to the start, recording the very first album, continue the group’s journey. The question the group is almost always asked by the press is: ‘What will happen in Cuba to traditional music when the old guys, the ‘originals’, have all gone?” The answer is: ‘It will continue’.