The New Yorker Radio Hour - Rubén Blades Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Salsa Star

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

For roughly half a century, the singer Rubén Blades has been spreading the gospel of salsa music to every corner of the globe, but his status as an music icon was anything but assured. Despite having an interest in music at an early age, the Panamanian-born Blades was pursuing a law career. But when the tumultuous political climate in Panama forced his family into exile in the United States, Blades found his way back into the music industry—through a record-company mailroom. “My diploma was not accepted by the Florida Bar, so I didn’t know what to do. I felt useless,” Blades tells The New Yorker’s Graciela Mochkofsky. “Then all of the sudden I thought of calling Fania Records, which was the biggest salsa label at the time.” Through the subsequent years, Blades came to recognize the power of salsa as a vehicle for people from disparate backgrounds and ideologies to find “common ground.” “My goal from the beginning was not to become famous or rich,” Blades says. “My goal from the beginning was to communicate, to present a position and create a conversation.” Mochkofsky talks with him about serving in the Panamanian government and about his lengthy career as an actor; outside the Americas, more people might know Rubén Blades as Daniel Salazar on “Fear the Walking Dead” than as a living legend of salsa.  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. In the world of salsa music, Ruben Blades is one of the greats. His 1978 album Siambra, a word that means planting or cultivating, remains one of the best-selling salsa albums of all time. Ruben Blades, or as we call him in Latin America, Ruben Blades, though his name is actually Ruben Blades, is one of the most important figures in Salsa.

Graciella Mutchkoffsky writes for the New Yorker about Latin American politics and culture. He's an incredibly prolific artist, a writer, a singer, an activist, and a Hollywood actor. Hi. My name is Ruthie. I have this music that is going to blow you away. I grew up in Argentina and he really sings for an entire people. We all feel like Bladesis or Blades songs are speaking about the struggles of our own countries.

It's not about Panama or Latinos in New York. It's really about all of us. 45 years ago, he released his very first really big album, Siambra, that he recorded with Willy Colon, who was at the center of the salsa movement then. And it was the first album that really brought salsa outside of New York and outside of the U.S. and Latin America to the world. Now you can, you know, there's salsa, the salsa movement is very much alive and vibrant in Israel, in Taiwan, in, in, in, Japan. You know, you could say that Ruben Blades or Blades sort of did for salsa music, what Bob Marley did for reggae. And he really brought it into the global consciousness. Blades just finished up a summer tour and he's been working on a memoir.

Graciella Mutchkowski sat down to talk with Blades about his life in music, politics, and acting. Okay, well, enpezs. Good afternoon. So I always start at the beginning. So I wanted to start. in 1969, when you were 21, and you came to New York City for the first time. And in that trip, you recorded what I believe was your first album,

from Panama to New York, with Pete Rodriguez and his orchestra. Let's listen for a moment to a song from that album just to get a sense of what it sounded like. So tell us about that album at where it came from. As anything and most of the things in my life, it came as a result of a total unexpected occurrences. I had quit music by that time because the dean of the law school in Panama asked me if I was going to be a musician or a lawyer. Because somebody saw me playing at a private house with a band called Los Salvae de Rhythm.

And the professor went and told the dean that he had seen me. and that he didn't think that that was a good idea to have a student singing on the weekends. Was this a very conservative environment? Yes, it was very, very, very, very, very, very strict. So anyway, then a friend of mine, there was a musician, Francisco Bukli, the first recording studio ever to have been built in Panama, Discos Ismenos, had asked him to come

with his band and performed to make sure that everything was in its right position to record. So Bush, knowing that I sang, called me and asked me to be a part of the group, and I said, I can't do that. And he said, no, this is a private thing. There's nobody, no one's going to be there. And it's just a band, please help us with this. And I said, well, I'll go and help as a backup. I went. The owner of the record label had brought somebody from New York called Pancho Crystal, which was one of the biggest producers in New York at the time to supervise the happenings. The band was three, I think, three horns

in the rhythm section, so eight people. One or two of the guys got lost, so they couldn't play the arrangements. So that required then improvisation. Benito Guardia, who was the piano player for Bush said Ruben, you like, you know, let's do the raton, which was a very popular song from Chelle Feliziano at the time. And I did it.

Pancho Cristal was at that moment in the cabin, and when he heard my voice, he ran out and went to me because at that time my voice sounded very much like the sound of the voice of Jose Cheo Feliciano, who was a recording start. And he was stunned. And he asked me if I ever wanted to, you know, record an album,

and I said, nah, not now. I can't do music, you know. The thing is he said, look, if you ever get to New York, call me. And he gave me his number. Then in Panama, in 1968, we had had the military coup. So one of the first things they did, the military did, was the close shot down the university. Now, my mother was very afraid that I was going to join any of the movements.

As a guerrilla? She was concerned that I was going to join. So she came up with this notion, like if I wanted a holiday, remember for my birthday, she wanted to send me to New York. And I called Pancho Cristal, that producer that I had met the year before. And then he said, oh, yeah, come over and I'll record you. Then we recorded this basically Salsa album, and that's how this album got done. I left New York, went back to Panama.

The university was reopened. I went back to law school. And you finished your degree there. I finished my degree. I never got involved in music again until the album came out, I believe, in 1970. Yes. I didn't even know about it when it came out. It didn't come out in Panama.

It only came out here. In Panama, it was released in Panama. You know, the first song of the album was a song I had written about a guerrilla, a guerrilla fighter who gets murdered by the army. Juan Gonzalez. Juan Gonzalez. So I thought, in order not to be arrested, I thought I can deflect the whole notion by saying that these events were occurring in a mythical place. So I said, la history that's going to hear of fictitious.

You know, this is all fiction. I'm doing this. This is fiction. Any, any, any, any, if this, this looks like Che Guevada, it's, it's just a coincidence. So you didn't settle in New York, and as you said, you came back to Panama, you got your law degree. But you ended up coming back to the U.S. in 1973, to Florida, where your parents were. 74. My father was accused of it by Noriega, who was then a colonel.

He was accused by Manuel Antonio Noriega, my father being involved in a plot to kill him. So my family, my mother took my family. Was that the truth? And I don't think so. I don't think it was the truth. but my father was a detective. He was working with the DEA. DAA had just started.

So the DEA was using my father in Panama as a contact and investigator because my father was one of the few Panamanian detectives who spoke English. Right. And so the fact that I think the DEA was closing in on Noriega made them want to get rid of it. So in 1974, I graduated from law school. I was working with people in jail at the time. I finished my thesis. I presented it, and I was approved.

And I decided to leave because I didn't, I'd seen no point of being a lawyer under a military dictatorship. So I went to Florida, and my family was having a lot of trouble. My mother was working in Florida. My father could not get a job. I had three small brothers. My diploma was not accepted by the Florida barn. So I didn't know what to do.

I felt useless. I didn't know what to do. And then all of a sudden I thought, of calling Fania Records, which was the biggest salsa label at the time. And I called and I offered myself as a writer and a singer, and they said no to both. And then I said, well, do you have any jobs? And then they said, well, as a matter of fact, just had an opening today in the mail office. And I said, well, what does that mean?

What are the chores? they explained it to me and I said I'll take it but when Barreto's band broke for the second time Tito Allen a wonderful great

local singer left the band Barreto had to find another singer so somebody told him that I sang and then he came to the mailroom to ask me if it was true that I sang and then he sort of interrogated me for

like, wow, for like an hour, like trying to understand what it was that I was doing there. And finally, he gave me a date for an audition. And I went. He hired Tito Gomez, who had been working with a sonora ponseña, Papa Luca, in Puerto Rico, excellent singer, Tito. And he hired me as well. So he had two singers in case that one singer left, the other one was still there. Right. And this is how you started really here. That's how I started full-time as a musician in 1974 or 75. I'm not sure. Right.

From the start, you were politically engaged and you sang about political topics. You talk about you were writing points about what was happening in Panama when you were in high school. And Juan Gonzalez, the song you referred to in your first album, is about the death of a guerrilla, a guerriller. Pablo Pueblo from 1977 is about this poor man who comes home and tired and hopeless after. working all day, the politicians he voted for have never made his life better. Here's a bit of Pablo Pueblo for those who haven't heard it.

So you've written a song about class, about the struggles of people, about dictatorships and revolutions, about the disappearedisados in Latin America, et cetera. But you've always rejected the label of political singer or protest singer, and you've never wanted to be seen as somebody

who sings political songs. Yes. Because political songs are propaganda. by definition, if you start singing about political ideology, you're not an artist, you're doing propaganda, basically. I try to be as close to a newspaper person as I can. Of course, you can't really say that you're objective by writing songs that reflect a point of view.

You have a point of view, but you can be balanced and you have to be careful in how you write it, so it doesn't become a lie. And basically what I thought at the time was that music, and especially salsa music, was creating what did not exist at the time, and I did not see it at the time, which was this excuse or this vehicle

for total strangers to meet. and all of a sudden share a common ground. So imagine that incredible possibility of having all these people who come from all these different walks of life in one place. Okay, so you can dance. Well, let's think too. Enhance the experience you're having right now, which is of contact. You're touching a total stranger to you in sometimes intimate ways

because it's a contact dance. And all of a sudden, now I'm talking to you about a priest that was killed, or I'm talking to you about your mother that died of cancer, or I'm talking to you about the girlfriend that went away because you were black and she was white, or I'm going to talk to you about the gay guy who doesn't dare to say that he's gay because he may have reprisals. Some people had never heard songs that touched politics or political aspects before, and some of them got very upset. with me because they call me a communist because I was like not using music only to escape. And they wrongly interpreted the direction of my criticism and ascribe it to a political ideology, which really pissed me off because I was always trying not to go there. I was remembering Charlie Garcia, you know, the Argentine box. Oh, yes, I do.

He once said he was, you know, those questions, what advice would you give to young artists or young musicians? And he said that the only piece of advice he had was to not make compromises at the start because people always thought that you had to compromise at the beginning to be able to be famous. But he said by the time you're famous, you're not going to be able to walk out of that box. It's too late. Absolutely. Very smart. My goal from the beginning was not to be famous, to become famous or rich.

My goal from the beginning was to communicate, to present a position and create a, a conversation. Singer, Ruben Blades, talking with Grasiela Muchkowski. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. Stick around. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Redd.

We'll continue now with the salsa legend, Ruben Blades, who sat for a long interview this summer with Grasiella Muchkowski of the New Yorker. This year, Blades won his 11th Grammy Award. He's credited with bringing about a kind of socially aware song writing to salsa. He's also been a government official

and a popular actor. He was a lead actor on Fear the Walking Dead, and Ruben Blades continues looking for ways to push the bounds of his music. So let's talk about jazz. So I attended your performance in 2014 with Winton Marsalis at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Yeah, that was great.

That was great. I remember the beginning was mostly jazz, and then you started singing some of your classics, and then all these people who had been restless in their rooms, they just finally could dance. And so everybody just jumped off their seats and started dancing on the sides of the ails. It was wonderful. But I believe that was the – and correct me if I'm wrong, but if I understand it correctly,

that was the origin of Sal Swing, this project of three albums that you recorded in 2021 with Roberto Delgado, the Panamanian big band leader. And Sal Swing is about the connections between Afro-Cuban music and jazz. Again, convergence, right, and connection. And I wanted to listen to one song. I hope you find the choice right, but I chose the way you look tonight. It's so gorgeous.

It's always so joyful. But the thing again, to bring it into context, my father is a gambling man. So one day he showed up in the house with a record player. It was the biggest record play I've ever seen. And with the record player, it came some albums. And these albums were some of the songs

that I picked when I did the South Swing. There was an album. There was a Tony Bennett record. There was, of course, a Sinatra album. There was a Sammy Davis Jr. album. So I learned to sing on top of the records. And that's why I lost my accent singing. And as a matter of fact,

I learned how to breathe because I started mimicking Sinatra so that I could, I ended up learning how to breathe just by following what he was doing in his records. But the point is that the jazz Latin connection is an old one. Right. It's a very old one.

In Panama, you have from Louis Russell that ended up being Louis Armstrong's band leader, Danilo Perez, who played with Wayne Shorter. So Carlos Enriquez is the bass player for Winston Marcellus's Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, approached me to say, you know, would you like to do some shows with us? and we did, and it worked. You inter, at one point between 2004 and 2009, you interrupted again your career as a musician for those, what, five years, to take on the role of Minister of Tourism in Panama.

This was after you had run for president of Panama in 1994, which you didn't win, obviously. And when you came back from Panama, you took on an acting role in Fear the Walking Dead, a post-apocalyptic TV series, the spinoff of the Walking Dead, which lasted eight seasons, I think, is coming to an end now.

Yes. And you said that was, you did it as a way to go back to relevancy. You said people were asking, is he dead? Yeah. I don't know if that's true, but...

No, it is true. Is it? Sure. And then, so this was not your first acting role. You've acted in like 30 movies and you've been, you know, in Hollywood for a long time. But I wanted you to talk a little bit about this decision to be a killer in a Zoom.

zombie movie as a way to go back to popular culture? There were many things. I mean, one of them was I went back to public service because it was a way to, I hope, to inspire the young in my country, Panama, to become involved in politics. Most people don't think, at least in Panama, to become involved in politics because they consider that it's corrupt and it's horrible. And I tell them it's corrupt and horrible because people like us, don't participate.

You have to eliminate the space for the corruption. For five years, I didn't do any singing or writing or touring or doing movies or anything. For five years, I just stayed in the public service. I did not want to go first to be a minister of tourism. I wanted to work in the correctional system in Panama because that's what I had been involved with when I was in law school. The president felt that I would be more helpful in an area that was going to contribute to the national growth product.

and they needed somebody there that can push it forward. But anyway, once I left Panama and not having recorded and not having done anything, I didn't even have an agent anymore. I needed work. But it wasn't just the fact that people were going like, where is he? But it was also like the – I was thinking in more practical ways as well. for instance, to get the medical insurance of Korean actors' guilt. So I ended up being offered a role in this upcoming.

It wasn't a spinoff, but something that came from, sprung from the Walking Dead. And what attracted me to the role was that it was a total opposite of me. It was a guy who had worked with the death squads and salary. Daniel Salazar. Daniel Salazar. So that when the event occurred and death people were rising and killing living people for reasons that I've never been totally explained. I could say that about the Trump candidacy.

And the thing is that his skills ended up becoming the thing to have, to survive in this new apocalyptic world. And it provided me with that access, not just to audiences in this country, but also worldwide. So all of a sudden you have somebody in Nigeria that maybe doesn't know about Pedro Navajal, and all of a sudden it goes like, oh, Daniel Salazar sings? I didn't know that. You run for president in Panama, but how about your political participation here in the U.S.? I wouldn't do it here because I would have to be a citizen. I am not a citizen

I'm a resident because if I had become a citizen then I could not participate in politics in Panama Of course, right You've said that coming back to the US that Latinos have no political power to speak of Because we act like tribes and we don't identify as one people What did you mean by that Basically, you know, it's again an interesting scenario

When you think about Latin America You think about really the world You know in Latin America you have white, black, brown. You can't really say that one group represents all groups because it's not true. So that's one very important difference. The second is that people who like myself ended up in this country came running from dictatorship or a scenario where we didn't have opportunities. When people arrive to the United States, most people don't want to talk about politics. They feel, you know what, I'm not going to rock the boat and I'm not going to

say anything. I'm just going to be quiet. So as a result of that, we don't have the political representation and or power or and or recognition. We're not even considered in films. I think it's 4% of all acting roles that are played by Latinos. But then when you go and see who goes most to the movies Latinos? Who eat more popcorn, Latinos, you know, who? I don't know that's more soda. Well, if we're the top ones and they're going to the movies, we're sure eating more popcorn than anybody else.

But I'm saying, where are we? When are we going to break away from the roads of narcotrafficking, a maid, illegal alien, hoodlum? Right. So. Do you feel that you were able to break away from that? I was able to say no. And I lost, I lost, I'll never forget. I lost a role in a movie called Q&A, and I turned it down because it was a drug dealer.

And as a career move, it was not a wise move, because if I had done that role, which was a lead, I maybe would have been seen for something else. But I could say no because I had the music. I'm not criticizing those who need to work because they need to support themselves. I had an option that was brought to me by music, so I said no. So my second question about staying relevant, you do a lot of collaboration with younger musicians, not just across genres, but also with people who are much younger and with much shorter careers. So you play with Cagetres, with Natalia Lafourcade. I love your song with Natalia Lafourcade.

And if you ask my son, who is 12, about Ruben Bledes, he will tell you that Bledes is the guy who played with stay homas during the pandemic. Stay Homas from Stay Home, in case people don't know what we're talking about, was a group created during the COVID-19 lockdown in Barcelona. Three guys who play on their rooftop and invited artists to play with them via their cell phones. So all my son's friends, those kids,

were listening to them on YouTube. I thought they were great. Melodically, I love. where they go. They're very good musicians on their own right. So then through the net I send a message, hey guys I love to do something with you

and then they called me. I saw him again last year in Cruel in the festival in Barcelona and I sang with them live in Barcelona. Oh, that's great. I didn't know. There are 25,000 people which is something again. I'm going like with this kid's going from being in a rooftop

singing with a glass and with a can to all of a sudden, 25,000 people. Their tour was bigger than mine. That's great. Okay, Ruben, much thanks, thank you all for listening. Graciela Mutchkoffi speaking with Ruben Blades. I'm David Remnick. That's the New Yorker Radio Hour for today.

Thanks for listening. And I hope you'll join us next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbes of Tune Yards with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Max Walton, Adam Howard, Callaglia, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin in Putabuele. with guidance from Emily Boutin

and assistance from Mike Cutchman, Michael May, David Gable, and Alejandro Deccan. And a special thanks this week to Alana Casanova Burgess. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.