Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Absolutely Stunning.
"Buena Vista Social Club" is the album that ignited my love affair with the rich and warm sounds of Cuban music. The album's intricate melodies and impassioned vocals glide through these excellent tracks, all produced by Ry Cooder. But while Cooder takes helm of the production, the real stars are the vocalists and the band members who breathe energy, feeling, and zest into this stellar recording. The opener "Chan Chan" is a gentle and laid back number equipped with effective percussion, a spicy dash of guitars, and well-harmonized vocals from Eliades Ochoa, Compay Segundo, and Ibrahim Ferrer. I was left in awe by the pretty melody of "De Camino a La Vereda" and the sharp trumpeting in "El Cuarto de Tula." But I was most impressed by the dynamite Ibrahim Ferrer who takes lead vocals in "Candela," an uptempo number which soars due to tasty acoustic guitars and percussion. Sensual, tender, emotional, and full of life, "The Buena Vista Social Club" is a towering and riveting experience. It's a rare beauty that will leave you amazed.
Rating:  - Beautifully romantic
This is the album that started all the recent Cuban craze. A simplified version of the story: Son, danzon and bolero were played in thrifty clubs in Havana before WWII and in years following it. Compay Segundo, Ruben Gonzalez, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo and the rest were masters of the art. Then in 1959 Castro liberated - or invaded, as you like it - Cuba and virtually isolated it from the rest of the world. And while outside the music became MTV-ized and globalized to the point where the music produced in Sweden is indistinguishable from that made in California, the guys in Cuba continued to do what they did best: they played son, danzon and bolero - all until Ry Cooder discovered them in 1997 and turned them into a success that vastly overshadowed his own musical efforts.Actually, getting them together required some detective work, as some of them have already given up their musical careers. Hardly surprising: Ruben Gonzales is 80, and Compay Segundo is 92. Buena Vista Social Club - named after an actual club in Havana, demolished already for decades - provides an anthological overview of styles played 50 years ago, and the sound you might recognize on your father's (or grandfather's) LP's. Well, almost - Ry Cooder felt the urge to put some peronal touch on the whole thing, in form of slide guitar (cf. "Orgullecida"). I wish he could resist the temptation. Still, it's a very beautiful and romantic record, one that makes you ask your sweetheart for a dance. CD comes with a 48-page booklet, which includes bilangual (Spanish/English) lyrics and some accompanying text. If you like this record, you might also want to check the solo albums that followed. There is also a pseudo-documentary movie by the same name, directed by Wim Wenders. And, go and check whether Afro-Cuban All Stars are touring somewhere near you.
Rating: - Spicy Cuban flavor with the charm of syncopation supremo.
Slide guitar virtuoso, Ry Cooder, has always been a proponent of rhythm. Whether turning a Johnny Cash song into zydeco, toting his instrument into the sleezy girly clubs of Paris, Texas, or revisiting the famous "crossroads," where blues-legend Robert Johnson made his pact with the devil, the man-from-all-regions always told the story with a groove to show for it.Cooder's mere presence in Cuba now brings validity to the island's rich, musical culture. Those way north of the border have now caught the spicy flavor and charm of syncopation supremo, inviting the Social Club to perform at New York's Carnegie Hall. "In Cuba, the music flows like a river," says Cooder. "It takes care of you and rebuilds you from the inside out." In a country that attributes your status by the amount of chrome still hanging on your Chevy, Cooder and friends fill the side streets with an invigorating sampling of son, danzon, guajira, and bolero. This is music that is cool in spite of the climate in which it was born. There isn't any documentary video to accompany us on the tour, but the zesty atmosphere of the recording will have you painting portraits just the same. You're likely to see yourself stepping into an alley bar for camaraderie among the working class, a partaking of the ardent spirits, viewing seductive senioritas lining the doorways, and inhaling tobacco-thick humidity being swirled by the ceiling fans and the distinctive Buena Vista Social Club that embraces it all. Order me a bloody mary and a celery stalk. Celebrate!! These passionate troubadours have won the West with an invigorating stamp of approval. So let the spirits that guard the prestigious Carnegie Hall pay attention. Here is rhythm, and it has a groove.
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