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On this day, 1 July 2003, Cuban guitarist and singer Eliades Ochoa played Cardiff’s Coal Exchange.
Eliades Ochoa was born in Santiago de Cuba on June 22, 1946, in Songo la Maya, Santiago de Cuba. Eliades is considered one of the most renowned Cuban “soneros” of all time, a notable defender of traditional Cuban music, and the best guitarist of his generation. His distinctive cowboy hat and his penchant for wearing black have led some to call him “The Cuban Johnny Cash.”
From a very young age, he began to play the guitar with his parents of peasant origin as teachers and in a self-taught way. He alternated with itinerant troubadours from a very young age. In his walks through “guateques,” bars, and “zonas de tolerancia,” he began to learn the vast traditional repertoire of Cuban music, of which he is a teacher today. His musical style is due to his place of origin, the Cuban countryside, the anecdotes he listened to, the “guateques campesinos,” and a series of other elements that marked him and made him the artist he is today.
He began playing the guitar when he was six and in 1978 he was invited to join Cuarteto Patria, a group founded in 1939, as its leader. Although he looks like a guajiro, and he still wears his trademark cowboy hat, his roots are in the son, and he only agreed to take on the role of leader if he was allowed to introduce new elements to the repertoire. He plays the guitar, tres and also a variant of the guitar, with two additional strings. His involvement with the Buena Vista Social Club and the Wim Wenders film of the same name (1999), has led him to worldwide fame.
