WBuena Vista Social Club is an ensemble of Cuban musicians established in 1996 to revive the music of pre-revolutionary Cuba. The project was organized by World Circuit executive Nick Gold, produced by American guitarist Ry Cooder and directed by Juan de Marcos González. They named the group after the homonymous members' club in the Buenavista quarter of Havana, a popular music venue in the 1940s. To showcase the popular styles of the time, such as son, bolero and danzón, they recruited a dozen veteran musicians, many of whom had been retired for many years.
WHavana Maestros – AmeriCuba is a collaborative album by Havana Maestros, which fuses a cast of Cuban musicians including Barbarito Torres and Amadito Valdes of the Buena Vista Social Club, with tracks from American artists such as Missy Elliott, Janelle Monáe, Jason Derulo, Ben E. King, Fun., Otis Redding, Chic, Dionne Warwick, B.o.B. and others. With Major Lazer they recorded a bonus track, a Cuban version of the song "Lean On", which is only available as an online download. The album was produced by the Berman Brothers.
WBuena Vista Social Club is a 1999 documentary film directed by Wim Wenders about the music of Cuba. It is named for a danzón that became the title piece of the album Buena Vista Social Club. The film is an international co-production of Germany, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Cuba.
WBuena Vista Social Club: Adios is a 2017 documentary film directed by Lucy Walker. It is a follow up to the 1999 documentary Buena Vista Social Club about Cuban music. The film was released in theaters on May 26, 2017.
W"Chan Chan" is a 1984 son composition by Cuban trovador Compay Segundo. It was first recorded in 1985 by Compay Segundo's own group. In 1987, he approached Eliades Ochoa, who agreed to record a version with the Cuarteto Patria. However, EGREM did not release these recordings until the second half of the 1990s. In November 1995, Compay recorded a new version in Madrid for his Antología, released on CD the following year. In March 1996, Compay Segundo, Eliades Ochoa and other veteran Cuban musicians recorded a new version of the song as part of the Buena Vista Social Club project. The song became the opening track of their eponymous album and the group's signature song, thereby achieving international fame.
WRyland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer and record producer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
WIbrahim Ferrer was a Cuban singer who played with Los Bocucos for nearly forty years. He also performed with Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental and Mario Patterson. After his retirement in 1991, he was brought back in the studio to record with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club in March 1996. He then toured internationally with these revival groups and recorded several solo albums for World Circuit before his death in 2005.
WJuan de Marcos González is a Cuban bandleader and musician, best known for his work with the Buena Vista Social Club.
WRubén González Fontanills was a Cuban pianist. Together with Lilí Martínez and Peruchín he is said to have "forged the style of modern Cuban piano playing in the 1940s".
WManuel "Guajiro" Mirabal is a Cuban trumpeter, best known for his work with the Buena Vista Social Club.
WEliades Ochoa Bustamante is a Cuban guitarist and singer from Loma de la Avispa, Songo La Maya in the east of the country near Santiago de Cuba.
WGilberto Oviedo la Portilla, better known as Papi Oviedo, was a Cuban tres player. Papi, the son of musician Isaac Oviedo, started playing the tres when he was about 15. A veteran of many bands, Papi was the tres player in Elio Revé's band for 13 years. He later toured with Buena Vista Social Club, exposing the son cubano genre to wider audiences.
WOmara Portuondo Peláez is a Cuban singer and dancer. A founding member of the popular vocal group Cuarteto d'Aida, Portuondo has collaborated with many important Cuban musicians during her long career, including Julio Gutiérrez, Juanito Márquez and Chucho Valdés. Although primarily known for her rendition of boleros, she has recorded in a wide range of styles from jazz to son cubano. Since 1996, she has been part of the Buena Vista Social Club project, touring extensively and recording several albums with the ensemble. She won a Latin Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Tropical Album in 2009 and a Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2019, and she received three Grammy Award nominations.
WRhythms del Mundo is a nonprofit collaborative album, which fuses an all-star cast of Cuban musicians including Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo of the Buena Vista Social Club with tracks from US, UK and Irish artists such as Dido, Arctic Monkeys, U2, Coldplay, Sting, Jack Johnson, Maroon 5, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs and others. A follow-up album, Rhythms del Mundo Classics, was released in 2009.
WMáximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles, known professionally as "Compay Segundo", was a Cuban trova guitarist, singer and composer.
WBárbaro Alberto Torres Delgado, better known as Barbarito Torres, is a Cuban musician best known for his work with the Afro-Cuban All Stars and the Buena Vista Social Club since 1996. Torres plays the laúd, a traditional Cuban instrument of the lute family that is most associated with the punto guajiro genre. He continues to tour with Buena Vista Social Club as one of the last surviving original members and has recorded several solo albums, the last of which, Vámonos pa'l monte, was released in 2016.
WErnst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, and photographer. He is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among many honors, he has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature: for Buena Vista Social Club (1999), about Cuban music culture; Pina (2011), about the contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch; and The Salt of the Earth (2014), about Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado.