Manuel Corona Raimundo (17 June 1880, in

Caibarién Caibarién is a municipality city in the Villa Clara Province, Villa Clara province of Cuba. Caibarién is known as "La Villa Blanca" () for its sands and beaches. They are famous for their "Parrandas" (Carnivals) along with Remedios, Cuba, Reme ...

– 9 January 1950 in Marianao, Havana) was a Cuban

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

musician, and a long-term professional rival of

Sindo Garay Sindo Garay (born Antonio Gumersindo Garay García; Santiago de Cuba, 12 April 1867 – Havana, 17 July 1968) was a Cuban trova musician. He was taught by Pepe Sánchez. Garay was one of the ''four greats of the trova''. He was of Spanish a ...

He came to Havana when the

Cuban War of Independence The Cuban War of Independence (), also known in Cuba as the Necessary War (), 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 Litt ...

broke out, and worked as a bootblack and a cigar-roller. His supervisor at the cigar factory taught him the guitar, and in 1905 he set up in a café in the red-light district of ''San Isidro''. The district was controlled by the chulo (pimp) Alberto Yarini (1882–1910), who became famous for introducing French prostitutes (putas francesas) willing to perform more salacious acts than even the Cubans were used to. The francesas cut heavily into the profits of the Cuban putas, and the result was a gang war in which Yarini was killed. Corona was present through all this, playing and singing to the punters, whores and pimps. He and one of the girls developed a love affair, and soon enough her pimp was on his trail. In a line that might have come from " Frankie and Johnny", Corona said later "She was a whore, and she had her man, but I liked her." The pimp came after him with a knife, and a cut to his hand prevented him playing the guitar again. From then on he lived from his compositions. He wrote hundreds of compositions, some of them amongst the finest examples of Cuban sentiment, such as ''Mercedes'', ''Longina'', ''Santa Cecilia'' and ''Aurora''. Guarachas such as ''El servicio obligatorio'' (National Service) and ''Acelera, Ñico, acelera'' were topical comments. ''La habanera'' was a deliberate reply to Garay's ''La bayamesa''. Corona died in poverty.Sublette, Ned 2004. ''Cuba and its music: from the first drums to the mambo''. Chicago. p302

References

*Hermanas Martí: ''Música de Manuel Corona''. EGREM LDG–2001 {{DEFAULTSORT:Corona, Manuel 1880 births 1950 deaths People from Caibarién Cuban male singer-songwriters Cuban singer-songwriters Cuban male guitarists Musicians from Havana 20th-century Cuban male singers 20th-century Cuban guitarists