Rubén González

1919 – 2003

Alongside Ibrahim Ferrer, pianist Rubén González was one of the veteran musicians to have his musical career reinvigorated by the Buena Vista Social Club recording of 1996. After years without owning a piano and despite the onset of arthritis, aged 77, the music flowed out of him prompting Ry Cooder to call him “the greatest piano soloist I have ever heard in my life.” When he toured with the Buena Vista musicians, he walked unsteadily on stage, but when he touched the piano keys his whole persona came to life.

Rubén González was born in 1919 in Santa Clara, central Cuba, and studied at Cienfuegos Conservatoire. He was planning to become a doctor, but his love of Cuban son took over. In 1941 he moved to Havana to begin his professional career playing dance music with some of the major orchestras in Cuba, beginning his recording career in 1943 with the pioneering bandleader Arsenio Rodríguez.

Rubén said that he approached the piano not as an accompanying instrument but one that also ‘leads’, whilst still maintaining the rhythm.  Arsenio was a major influence on Rubén’s playing style giving him invaluable advice. He explained that the key to being a great pianist was mastering Cuban syncopation, while at the same time playing from the heart.  “Don’t worry about what anyone else is doing. Just play your own style, whatever it is, but don’t imitate anyone. Just carry on like that, so when people hear your music, they’ll say, ‘that’s Rubén’.” 

Having established his distinctive style, Rubén went to Panama for some years with Las Estrellas Negras (The Black Stars). Back in Cuba in the early 1960s he became pianist for Enrique Jorrín, the man credited with inventing the cha cha cha, and played with him for the next 25 years. In 1979 some of Cuba’s top musicians were selected for all-star sessions which were released on five LPs as Estrellas De Areito. These were indeed legendary recordings featuring the cream of Cuba’s musicians, including several marvellous tracks with Rubén González. These were his last recordings before Buena Vista and were indeed the reason why Ry Cooder was keen to call him into the Buena Vista sessions.

After five years of retirement, in 1996, Rubén was brought in to play on the Afro-Cuban All Stars album and on Buena Vista Social Club. After they were completed, Rubén was still at the piano keys. “It was such a beautiful piano and I had to play it,” he said. “They were all my friends around so I went and started playing a tumbao. Then Cachaito joined me on the bass, then the rhythm started to play and it was good. But then someone turned up the lights. I thought they wanted me to stop. Then I saw Nick [Gold] put his thumb up and they asked me to stay.”

There were still two days left in the studio and with virtually no rehearsal the band laid down a collection of classic Cuban tunes, descarga (jam session) style. Several of the musicians, including Guajiro Mirabal (trumpet) and charango flute player Richard Egües (who guests on one track) had been at the Estrellas de Areito sessions. Introducing Rubén González, released in 1997, has become a landmark album in Cuban music.

In 2000, aged 81, Rubén recorded his swansong, Chanchullo, an album full of vigour and inventiveness. Prior to his Buena Vista success, Rubén had never toured internationally and what touched him the most was that, unlike the years he spent playing at dances, audiences were now actually listening attentively to what he was playing. Alongside the brilliant core band are notable guests, including Richard Eguës (flute), Eliades Ochoa (guitar), Ry Cooder (tres) and Ibrahim Ferrer and, on ‘Choco Guajira’, Senegalese label mate Cheikh Lô.

As his health deteriorated, Rubén was forced to retire from performing and stayed with his family in Havana. He died in 2003.