“After so many years of a career spent singing to please people around her, I asked her: “Omara, what would you like to sing?””. Producer Alê Siquiera posed her this very natural question, which would lead to the production of Gracias (08), a record in which Omara Portuondo (Havana, Cuba, 1930) celebrates her 60 years in the music business, and in which she gives herself (and us) a very special gift: a selection of the songs that have marked her career –“Drume negrita”, “Rabo de nube”, “Nuestro gran amor”, “Cachita”, “Ámame como soy”, and the occasional piece composed especially for the occasion, such as the Jorge Drexler song from which gives the record its title.

The dame of Cuban music has spent 60 of her 78 years dedicated to music. A dancer at the Tropicana aged 17, she became one of her country’s voices, singing in bands such as Loquibambla Swing –where she was nicknamed ‘la Novia del Filin’ (The Bride of Feeling)–, Las d'Aida and Orquesta Aragón. However, it was not until the Buena Vista Social Club project –the Ry Cooder record and the Wim Wenders film– that the international public at large was made aware of the richness of Cuban music and the island’s veteran musicians, such as Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Rubén González, Elíades Ochoa and Omara herself, who now looks back to say Gracias to all – to all those musicians who accompanied her, to the public,… “to whom it may correspond”. But Omara doesn’t say goodbye, she wouldn’t think of it.

www.omaraportuondo.com
www.myspace.com/omaraportuondo