Today Juan Almeida Bosque would turn 94 years old. Much is known about his combative trajectory, which earned him the rank of Commander of the Revolution. However, in the existence of this revolutionary, art occupied a very important place, especially literature and music.
Precisely to music he dedicated a good part of his time, as he had great artistic sensitivity, high aesthetic quality, innate romanticism and exquisite sagacity to translate everyday life into songs.
Almeida wrote more than 300 musical pieces and nine books related, mostly, with the epic of the Cuban Revolution, which attests to his extraordinary creative capacity. Among his most popular compositions are La Lupe, Este son homage,
Better to conclude, The big day in January, What’s wrong with that woman and Not on the phone. While his prose highlights General Máximo Gómez, Por las faldas del Turquino, Attention! Count!, The Sierra Maestra and beyond and La aurora de los héroes.
Although apparently without habits to compose, his son Juan Guillermo (JG) and Juana de los Cuetos, a worker at Estudios Siboney, agree that the Commander preferred the proximity to the sea and the direct link with nature where he stimulated the muse who accompanied him forever. He also did it in his car, where he kept a notepad and a tape recorder, in which he captured whatever melody occurred to him on the way from one place to another.
But according to JG, his father’s favorite place to transform ideas into art was a city separated from the capital by almost 1,000 kilometers, which he first arrived in July 1953 and where his musical legacy is best protected: Santiago de Cuba.