HAVANA.- Many of us have mourned the death of the singer in recent weeks Alfredito Rodríguez. And the charismatic artist, so popular for several decades, deeply touched the hearts of the majority of Cubans.
I found out about its existence when, on a nighttime program on Radio Progreso, back in 1969, they played a song whose title I don’t remember and that I never heard again. Shortly after, other very popular songs arrived, such as Shiveringwhich conquered a large part of the public.
I had a cousin, now deceased, who was a fan of Alfredito Rodríguez. She knew all his songs by heart and every time she heard him on television or the radio, even though she didn’t know how to sing, she added her voice to his.
She was just one of his thousands of fans. Alfredito managed to record albums that sold well and included widely accepted pieces, such as Sagittarius, good person and Aimless galealong with the trio Los Embajadores.
In addition to participating regularly, at the beginning of the 1970s, in the youth program Good afternoonhe made other television programs such as Her night with Alfredo and The differencewhere he served as an interviewer. He also hosted a midday program in which, in addition to presenting, he performed his musical numbers and shared the space with other artists. It is said that in that program he paid for the rental cars of his guests out of his own pocket, with credit to the company Cuba Taxi, which was mentioned at the end of the broadcast.
One of the emissions of The differencein December 2006, was especially controversial when Alfredito interviewed Jorge “Papito” Serguera, former director of the ICR and notorious cultural repressor during the so-called Gray Decade. Serguera’s presence, parallel to that of Luis Pavón Tamayo and Armando Quesada in other programs, provoked numerous criticisms from artists and intellectuals and gave rise to the well-known “little email war”.
Alfredito Rodríguez also had to face strong opposition from cultural officials and official cultural figures, who described his presentations as “capitalist.” This caused all of its programs to be suspended after some time on the air.
Their songs were also not well regarded by the cultural authorities of the regime, who considered them “banal, facile, foreignizing” and far from revolutionary values.
Tired of being silenced and with the goal of being with his children, he emigrated with his family, first to Mexico and then to the United States.
Eleven years ago, was interviewed by the prominent journalist, writer and presenter Jaime Bayly, who defined him as “talented, elegant and stately.” In that conversation, Alfredito confessed that he came from a very humble background: he said that he lived in a room in a Havana lot and that, thanks to his efforts as an artist, he managed to acquire a modest apartment.
When asked if he considered himself a good singer, he replied, “Not at all,” adding that the truly talented one had been his son, a jazz pianist and composer, who worked with Quincy Jones and was nominated for a Grammy Award.
When inquiring about his musical tastes, he explained that they were very broad: he listened to both The Beatles and Benny Moré, something that was reflected in the radio program he hosted on the Cadena Azul station in Miami, where he sought to get his listeners to identify with his preferences.
Alfredito—without the need for a last name, as he was always known—had many admirers, but also detractors, due to his showman style. When he sang, he untied his tie, writhed, and ended up throwing his jacket to the floor.
He was a simple man, with a desire to do different things, something that, in my opinion, he fully achieved and which earned him the acceptance of his people. When asked which of his songs he most identified with, he responded: “Good person”. An exact self-definition.
