Manuel Corona (musician) on:
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Manuel Corona Raimundo (17 June 1880, in Caibarién – 9 January 1950 in 
He came to Havana when the
Marianao
Marianao is one of the 15 municipalities or boroughs (''municipios'' in Spanish) in the city of Havana, Cuba. It lies 6 miles southwest of the original city of Havana, with which it is connected by the Marianao railway. In 1989 the municipality had ...
, Havana) was a Cuban 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, and a long-term professional rival of Sindo Garay.
He came to Havana when 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 (Cuba), Little War (1879–1880). The ...
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
Alberto Yarini y Ponce de León (1882-1910) was a Cuban racketeer and pimp during the period of the Cuban War of Independence against Spain. Yarini was well known in his time, is Cuba's most famous pimp, and came to symbolize the concept of C ...
(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
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