Iluminado Davila Medina (July 1, 1918 – June 7, 2021) was a Puerto Rican musician. He was a
cuatrista.
Biography
Davila Medina was born in
Morovis, Puerto Rico, the son of Jose Davila Ortega, also a cuatro musician, and Joaquina Medina Guzman. He had two sisters, older sister Elisa and younger sister Josefa, and a brother, Juan, who was older than him by one year. At the age of 17, he began listening to a radio show on
WKAQ radio. About 1945, Davila Medina was living in
Vega Alta
Vega Alta () is a Vega Alta barrio-pueblo, town and Municipalities of Puerto Rico, municipality of Puerto Rico. Vega Alta is on the northern coast of the island, north of Morovis and Corozal, Puerto Rico, Corozal; east of Vega Baja; and west of ...
, a northern city in Puerto Rico near the country's capital of
San Juan San Juan, Spanish for Saint John, may refer to:
Places Argentina
* San Juan Province, Argentina
* San Juan, Argentina, the capital of that province
* San Juan, Salta, a village in Iruya, Salta Province
* San Juan (Buenos Aires Underground), ...
, when he decided to travel to San Juan and meet the musicians on that show, namely
Leocadio Vizcarrondo,
Samuel Archilla,
Felipe Goyco and three other musicians who formed a popular, Puerto Rican radio music band of the time.
Davila Medina and his friends once had a band named Grupo Idilio, which performed
serenatas around Morovis. At age 18, he was also a member of "Grupo Orion".
[https://www.senado.pr.gov/Legislations/rs0713-18.pdf ] Around 1956, he joined a radio show named "Onda Morobena" (sic) in
Arecibo, where he and his band played for three years. Davila Medina played lead and secondary cuatro at that time.
Davila Medina married a woman named Gladys;
the marriage lasted 70 years until her death and produced two sons and one daughter; both sons preceded him in death. One of them, "Junior", once joined Iluminado on a band that Iluminado created in 1983, Conjunto Tipico Moroveno.
Davila Medina continued playing the cuatro well into his old age; during his 90s, he was still playing the cuatro on other artists' albums as well as on compilation albums.
He died on June 7, 2021, at the age of 102.
Honors
On May 12, 2011, Puerto Rican governor
Luis Fortuno
Luis is a given name. It is the Spanish language, Spanish form of the originally Germanic language, Germanic name or . Other Iberian Romance languages have comparable forms: (with an accent mark on the i) in Portuguese language, Portuguese and ...
inaugurated the
Centro de Bellas Artes Iluminado Davila Medina
Centro may refer to:
Places Brazil
* Centro, Santa Maria, a neighborhood in Santa Maria, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
* Centro, Porto Alegre, a neighborhood of Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
*Centro (Duque de Caxias), a neighborhood of Du ...
in Morovis, a theater and musical structure that, since 2019, has a mosaic depicting its namesake,
reminiscent of the one dedicated to basketball player
Mario Morales
Mario Morales Micheo (born November 13, 1957) is a former Puerto Rican basketball player. He is known as a.k.a. "Quijote" Morales for his ability to conquer both scoring and team championships in Puerto Rico's BSN league. He is the father of ...
at the
Mario Morales Coliseum in
Guaynabo, another large Puerto Rican city.
Later on, the
Puerto Rican Senate released a resolution on April 18, 2018, congratulating Davila Medina for his musical career and for him being about to turn 100 years old.
See also
*
List of Puerto Ricans
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Davila Medina, Iluminado
1918 births
2021 deaths
Puerto Rican musicians
People from Morovis, Puerto Rico
Puerto Rican centenarians
Men centenarians