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Artist
Guillermo Portabales
12+ albums
cubanguajiralatincubason
about
Guillermo Portabales (6 April 1911 – 25 October 1970) was a Cuban singer-songwriter and guitarist who popularized that guajira style of Cuban music from the 1930s through the 1960s. His languid, melancholy, intensely lyrical guajiras and his elegant, stylish singing made him greatly popular throughout Latin America, where he is still revered. Portabales was born José Guillermo Quesada del Catillo in the province of Rodas, in the former department of Las Villas. At age 11, Portabales began work as a printer's assistant in Cienfuegos. In 1928, he made his radio debut on the station CMHI, and from then on divided his time between his work as a printer and performing. In the beginning, Portabales sang a variety of styles -- canción, tango, bolero, son until he discovered that his listeners enjoyed the guajira the most. He thereby refined the style and developed his signature salon guajira style in which he depicted in bucolic terms the life of the Cuban guajira (the rural campesino). Portabales sang and played guitar, accompanied bass and percussion. His guajiras have a gentle, lilting rhythm, mixing elements of the traditional son and the bolero. Portabales continued to perform and perfect the guajira in eastern Cuba (the Orient) until invited to Puerto Rico in 1936. Portabales became instantly enamored of the neighboring Caribbean island and remained there for several years, singing in theaters, clubs and on the radio. In 1939, he married the puertoriqueña Arah Mina López,
