BY VICTORIA M. COPA (DPA)

WITH the death of Compay Segundo, Cuban music has lost one of its most unique interpreters, a man who reached fame at 90 and although he came close, was not granted his wish to live to 115.

Máximo Francisco Repilado, born in the east of the island in Seboney on November 18, 1907, was recently the most active musician of his age in the world and, at 90-plus performed his sones and guarachas on countless stages without abandoning his smile or his cigar.

With a musical history that dated back to his childhood, this essentially Cuban and sympathetic man with a deep baritone voice rubbed shoulders on the island with the finest of his generation, including the Matamoros band, the “fathers” of son, and the Los Compadres duo, which he founded and was the origin of his artistic name, as he was the second voice.

The composer of more than 100 pieces, Compay Segundo studied clarinet, an instrument he played for a number of years, although he was always to be seen playing a version of an eight-string guitar that he crafted himself.

Although he was known on the island since the early 20th century, particularly in his eastern region of Cuba, world fame came at the age of 90, principally in Europe, and was consolidated with his inclusion in the Buena Vista Social Club, winner of a Grammy award.

He attained diamond, gold, silver and platinum discs through prolific sales and his compositions stayed for weeks on end in the hit parades of Spain, France and Colombia, among other countries.

One of his CDs most praised by the critics was Duetos (Duets) launched in 2002, in which he sang with eminent Cuban musical figures such as Omara Portuondo, Eliades Ochoa and Silvio Rodríguez, and with foreign interpreters of the stature of Cesaria Evora of Cape Verde and Frenchman Charles Aznavour.

In recent years he was never missing from Cuba’s cigar festivals, where his hat was auctioned and where he recalled his days as a cigar roller among humidors and aromatic leaves.

At one of those fiestas he sang to President Fidel Castro, who took his pulse and joked about his vitality despite his 90-plus years.

“Who could have imagined that?” he asked when he found himself at the Vatican, performing his universally known “Chan Chan” before Pope John Paul II. Shortly afterwards in the United States, Hollywood stars Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta-Jones wildly applauded him.

He explained his longevity simply: mutton consommé and a drink of rum. When he was asked how long he thought he would live, he recalled that his grandmother died at the age of 115.

“I’ll ask for an extension when I get there,” he said. Death, however, didn’t listen to him.

(Granma) July 14, 2003