Guillermo portabales wiki

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