Rubén Blades Bellido de Luna (born July 16, 1948) is a Panamanian salsa singer,
songwriter, lawyer, actor, Latin jazz musician and politician, performing musically
most often in the Afro-Cuban and Latin jazz genres.
As songwriter, Blades brought the lyrical sophistication of Central American nueva
canción and Cuban nueva trova to salsa, creating thinking persons' dance music.
Blades has composed dozens of musical hits. Blades's father Rubén was a percussionist
-turned-detective and his mother Anoland was a singer and pianist.
Her great-uncle Juan Bellido de Luna was active in the Cuban revolutionary movement
against Spain and was later a pro-US writer and publisher in NY. He tells in the song West
Indian Man on the album Amor y Control ("That's where the Blades comes from.") (1992)
"A talented songwriter who still had to develop a singing style of his own." Blades started
collaborating with trombonist and band leader Willie Colón, and they recorded several
albums together, and participated in albums by plena singer Mon Rivera and the Fania All
Stars. Blades' first notable hit was a song on the 1977 album Metiendo Mano which he had
composed in 1968, "Pablo Pueblo", a meditation about a working class father who returns
to his home after a long day at work. The song later became his unofficial campaign song
when he ran for president of Panama. The Colón and Blades recording on the same album
of Tite Curet Alonso's composition "Plantación Adentro", which dealt with the brutal treatment
of Indian natives in Latin Americas' colonial times, was an enormous hit in various Caribbean
countries. He wrote and performed several songs with the Fania All Stars releases, including
the hits "Juan Pachanga" about a party animal who buries his pain for a lost love in dance &
drink. The Colón and Blades album Siembra (1978) became the best-selling salsa record in
history. It has sold over 25 million copies, and almost all of its songs were hits at one time
or another in various Latin American countries.
This 2 color design was inspired by the Album cover "Metiendo Mano" released by
Fania Records 1977, in the bottom in blue print reads "Explosive Hits" representing
the Social impact Ruben Blades and Willie Colon created with their Music.
Our Love and Respects to The Revolutionary Ruben Blades.
His music has been a father to me since I arrived to USA in 1985 "Rich Spirit"
Price:$26.00
