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Elena Casals™

My mother, the late Cuban songwriter and poet, Elena Casals, was a fabulous blonde… tall and thin, with lucious lips and huge blue-green eyes. Her charm and movie star looks could melt any man that crossed her path. She was a strong independent woman, down to earth, funny, warm and loving. But til the end, “Mimí”, as she was affectionately called since she was a child in her home town of Pinar Del Rio, was always an artist first and never cared about money. The only thing she wanted in life… until her last moments… was to listen to her poems read to her, re-writing a word here and there along the way, and to listen to her Boleros recorded by legends such as Roberto Ledesma, Lucho Gatica and La Reina Del Bolero, Olga Guillot, who recorded her song “Doña Tristeza”, on her final album. That song was also recently recorded by Concha Buika.

Whenever my mother entered any night club in Miami, San Juan or Mexico City, pianists and orchestras would stop and begin playing her songs.

Elena Casals was one of the founders of the Society of Cuban Composers and Authors in Exile, along with the genius and great personality José Carbó Menéndez, and a great friend from the days of her youth in Havana … the Cuban composer Concha Valdes Miranda. I was the boy sitting on the edge of the stairs, who did not want to go to sleep when they all gathered in our humble little government project house in Liberty City, for the poor and Cuban refugees. My aunt Olga, Olga Guillot the Queen of the Bolero, with her then husband, my Uncle Bebo Rodriguez, my mother’s brother (who sang in the famous Tropicana Nightclub vocal group Los Bucaneros in Havana), would come to visit us from Mexico, and I remember that they always organized fun and raucous all night jam sessions. I remember the jokes and the laughs between drinks and cigarettes (when smoking was still healthy). And also, when they premiered, gathered there in our home, their new songs, the same songs that today are now classics. I have never forgotten how they recited, trembled, cried and shouted their patriotic poems and anthems dedicated to the island of Cuba…the mythological paradise they had lost. All this was without a doubt, what inspired me to become a songwriter.

When she sailed on in 2012, I felt a strong the need to do something to celebrate the life and music of all Latin composers, especially the many like her, who have lived in the shadows of the great artists they wrote for, and thereby honoring her memory. Encouraged by my colleagues on the Board of Directors of the Songwriters Hall Of Fame in New York, I joined songwriter / producer Rudy Pérez to create his longtime dream to establish the world’s first Latin Songwriters Hall Of Fame. In 1954, the American sculptor Lee Burnham… sculpted the original clay statuette of ‘La Musa’, using as her model, my beautiful and bohemian mother who had become her muse. In 2013, LA MUSA was re-sculpted by renowned Nashville-based artist Alan LeQuire, to become the official trophy for the Latin Songwriters Hall Of Fame. The ‘Premio La Musa’ is awarded each year to Latin songwriters and composers, inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall Of Fame at the LA MUSA AWARDS.

So my beloved mother Elena Casals… always was and always will be… LA MUSA.

Desmond Child

Mi madre, la compositora y poetisa cubana Elena Casals, fue una rubia maravillosa… alta y flaca, con unos labios y ojasos de estrella de cíne que derretian a los hombres. Linda, graciosa y cariñosa, mi mamá fue siempre una artista primero, y nunca le importo el dinero. Lo unico que queria en su vida… hasta su ultimo momento… era escuchar sus boleros grabados por grandes artistas, Roberto Ledesma, Lucho Gatica y La Reina Del Bolero, Olga Guillot, quien le canto su canción “Doña Tristeza”, la cual quedo grabada en su ultimo disco. Esa cançión tambien fue grabada recientemente por Concha Buika. Cuando mi madre entraba a cualquier cabaret en Miami, pianista y orquesta comenzaban a tocarle sus canciones. Cuando falleció en el año 2012, crecio dentro de mí, el impulso de hacer algo para celebrar la vida y la música de todos los compositores Latinos como ella, y de ese modo, honrar su memoria.

Elena Casals fue una de las fundadoras de la Sociedad De Los Compositores y Autores Cubanos en el Exilio, junto al genio y gran personaje José Carbó Menéndez, y a una gran amiga de su juventud, de allá en La Habana… la compositora cubana Concha Valdes Miranda. Yo era el niño sentado en el borde de las escaleras, que no se queria ir a dormir cuando todos ellos se reunian en nuestra humilde casita, dada por el gobierno, para los pobres y los refugiados. Cuando llegaban a visitarnos de Mexico, mi tia Olga, Olga Guillot la Reina del Bolero, con su entonces esposo, mi Tio Bebo Rodriguez, hermano de mi mamá, que cantaba en el famoso grupo vocal cubano Los Bucaneros, recuerdo que siempre se formaba tremenda descarga. Yo recuerdo los chistes, las risas entre tragos y cigarillos (cuando todavia era saludable fumar). Y tambien, cuando ellos estrenaban, ahi reunidos en casa, sus canciones por entonces nuevas, las mismas que hoy, son las clásicas… Nunca he olvidado como recitaban, lloraban, gritaban sus poesias patrióticas dedicadas a su isla añorada, Cuba… ese paraiso mitológico que perdieron. Todo esto fue sin duda, lo que inspiró al compositor en mi.

En el año 1954, la escultora Americana Lee Burnham…. esculpió La Musa , tomando como modelo a mi bella y bohemia mamá, quien en esos tiempos fue su Musa. LA MUSA, ha sido reesculpida, por el renombrado escultor originario de Nashville, Alan LeQuire, para ser el premio oficial de “El Salon de la Fama de los Compositores Latinos”. El Premio “LA MUSA”, se entregara cada año a los compositores hispanos, honrados y elejidos para ingresar a “El Salon de la Fama de los Compositores Latinos” en la ceremonia llamada: “LA MUSA AWARDS”.

Asi es que mi querida mamá Elena Casals… siempre fue y siempre será… LA MUSA.

Desmond Child