Sindo Garay (born Antonio Gumersindo Garay García;

Santiago de Cuba Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana. The municipality extends over , and contains t ...

, 12 April 1867 –

Havana Havana (; Spanish: ''La Habana'' ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center.

, 17 July 1968) was a

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

trova ''Trova'' is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as ''trovadores'' who travelled around Cuba's Oriente province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by s ...

musician. He was taught by Pepe Sánchez. Garay was one of the ''four greats of the trova''. He was of Spanish and

Arawak The Arawak are a group of indigenous peoples of northern South America and of the Caribbean. Specifically, the term "Arawak" has been applied at various times to the Lokono of South America and the Taíno, who historically lived in the Greater ...

an descent.

Life & work

Garay was the most outstanding composer of trova songs, and his best have been sung and recorded many times. ''Perla marina'', ''Adios a La Habana'', ''Mujer bayamesa'', ''El huracan y la palma'', ''Guarina'' and many others are now part of Cuba's heritage. Garay was also musically illiterate – in fact, he only taught himself the

alphabet An alphabet is a standardized set of basic written graphemes (called letters) that represent the phonemes of certain spoken languages. Not all writing systems represent language in this way; in a syllabary, each character represents a syll ...

at 16 – but in his case not only were scores transcribed by others, but there are recordings as well. For a long period he sang in a duo with his eldest son Guarionex; he had two other sons and a daughter, and gave them all Indian names. In the 1890s Garay got involved in the

Cuban War of Independence The Cuban War of Independence (), fought from 1895 to 1898, was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain, the other two being the Ten Years' War (1868–1878) and the Little War (1879–1880). The final three months ...

, and decided a stay in

Hispaniola Hispaniola (, also ; es, La Española; Latin and french: Hispaniola; ht, Ispayola; tnq, Ayiti or Quisqueya) is an island in the Caribbean that is part of the Greater Antilles. Hispaniola is the most populous island in the West Indies, and th ...

(

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

and

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares wit ...

) would be a good idea. It was, and he came back with a wife. Garay settled in Havana in 1906, and in 1926 joined

Rita Montaner Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda (20 August 1900 – 17 April 1958), known as Rita Montaner, was a Cuban singer, pianist and actress. In Cuban parlance, she was a '' vedette'' (a star), and was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and ...

and others to visit Paris, spending three months there singing his songs. He broadcast on radio, made recordings and survived into modern times. He used to say "Not many men have shaken hands with both

Jose Marti Jose is the English transliteration Transliteration is a type of conversion of a text from one script to another that involves swapping letters (thus ''trans-'' + '' liter-'') in predictable ways, such as Greek → , Cyrillic → , Gree ...

and

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...

Carlos Puebla Carlos Manuel Puebla (; 11 September 1917, Manzanillo – 12 July 1989, Havana) was a Cuban singer, guitarist, and composer. He was a member of the old trova movement who specialized in boleros and patriotic songs. Biography Born into a mo ...

, whose life spanned the old and the new trova, told a good joke about him: "Sindo celebrated his 100th birthday several times – in fact, whenever he was short of money!" de Leon, Carmela 1990. ''Sindo Garay: memorias de un trovador''. La Habana. Garay's life story as told in his nineties; includes a 16-page appendix listing his compositions.

References

1867 births 1968 deaths Cuban guitarists Cuban male guitarists Cuban male singer-songwriters Cuban centenarians Men centenarians {{Cuba-musician-stub