Mexico City, Mexico-.Peter Vargas he fell in love with Cuba since he first visited the island in 1933, accompanied by Agustín Lara and Ana María Fernández. On that occasion, he was barely able to perform live due to the political instability of the Gerardo Machado government, but he shared with important figures from the Cuban artistic world such as Ernesto Lecuona.
The attraction that the Mexican interpreter felt for Havana led him to return again and again and even live for some periods on the island. Of these visits there have been recordings of him with Cuban icons such as the great Benny More.
Precisely the “Bárbaro del Ritmo” was considered a musical genius. And so recognized it to a journalist: “When we recorded together, since I know how to read music, I wrote his score and mine, and I told him: Benny is in your part, and to my surprise, he replied: Master, I don’t know how to read that. You start, I’ll follow you.”
“And that is how these duets that made history in the Latin American music scene were recorded.”
For the interpreter, traveling to Cuba was an event that he repeated every year and he tried to come up with new songs to premiere them in our country. He also took advantage of his stay on the island to ask national composers to give him songs. Some of his successes came from Cuban hands. For example, Bobby Collazo wrote “La última noche” for him. Another Cuban, Fernando Mulens, composer of those emblematic boleros that are “Qué te pédi” and “De corazón a corazón”, was his accompanying pianist for years.
On each visit, Cuba appeared in the most important theaters in the country, which were always completely filled when their name was announced. The local stations also invited him to his studios.
According to historian Ciro Bianchi, Vargas performed in the Cuban capital for the last time in March 1959, in the cabaret of the Capri hotel. That nightclub presented the production “Capricho cubano”, with performances by Puerto Rican Lucy Fabery and Cubans Fernando Álvarez and Raquel Bardisa, and the presence of Vargas, for two weeks, led to a full house.
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