Chan Chan - Buena Vista Social Club

         This song captures the essence of Cuban music, the beauty in the ability to capture so many different instruments in harmony yet each is defined. This son was composed by Francisco Repilado, better known as Compay Segundo who was born in Siboney, Cuba in 1907. This song Chan Chan is his most important composition, and the opening track to the famous album that gave Cuban music to the world: Buena Vista Social Club.  Compay Segundo was (he passed away in 2007) a very romantic man who loved women and you can certainly hear it in every single strum in this song. It talks about a guajiro (Cuban slang for people from the countryside) couple from the region around Santiago in eastern Cuba, and it conveys the hardship of such lives, but at the same time the love between man and woman.  The voice in the song is Eliades Ochoa, 1946, who is known as the best guitarist of his time, but you can hear Compay Segundo's voice as the 2nd (hence his nickname) in the background.