Arsenio Rodríguez
| Arsenio Rodríguez | |
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Arsenio Rodríguez (center, standing) and his conjunto in the 1940s.
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull |
| Also known as | El Ciego Maravilloso |
| Born |
August 31, 1911 Güira de Macurijes, Matanzas, Cuba |
| Origin | Havana, Cuba |
| Died | December 30, 1970 (aged 59) Los Angeles, California, United States |
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| Years active | 1929-1970 |
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Arsenio Rodríguez (born Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull; 31 August 1911 – 30 December 1970) was a Cuban musician, composer and bandleader. He played the tres, as well as the tumbadora, and he specialized in son, rumba and other Afro-Cuban music styles. In the 1940s and 1950s Rodríguez established the conjunto format and contributed to the development the son montuno, the basic template of modern-day salsa. He claimed to be the true creator of the mambo and was an important as well as a prolific composer who wrote nearly two hundred songs.
Despite being blind since the age of seven, Rodríguez quickly managed to become one of Cuba's foremost treseros. Nonetheless his first hit, "Bruca maniguá", came as a songwriter in 1939. The following year he founded his conjunto, one of the first of its kind. After recording over a hundred songs for RCA Victor over the course of twelve years, Rodríguez moved to New York in 1952, where he remaind active, releasing several albums. In 1970, Rodríguez moved to Los Angeles, where he died of pneumonia shortly before the end of the year.
Ignacio Arsenio Travieso Scull was born in Güira de Macurijes in Bolondrón (Pedro Betancourt), Matanzas Province as the third of fifteen children, fourteen boys and one girl, to Bonifacio Travieso, a veteran of the Cuban War of Independence who worked as a farmer, and Dorotea Rodríguez Scull. His family had Kongo origins, and both his grandfather and great-grandfather were practitioners of Palo Monte. In 1918, at around 7 years of age, Arsenio was blinded when a horse kicked him in the head after he accidentally hit the animal with a broom. In 1926, his family moved from Güines to Havana, where he started playing in local groups around Marianao. By 1928 he had formed the Septeto Boston which often performed in third-tier, working-class cabarets in the area. His father died in 1933 and sometime in the early 1930s, Arsenio changed his stagename from Travieso (which means "mischievous" or "naughty") to his mother's maiden name, Rodríguez, a fairly common Spanish surname. After dissolving the unsuccessful Septeto Boston in 1934, Rodríguez joined the Septeto Bellamar, directed by his uncle-in-law José Interián and featuring his cousin Elizardo Scull on vocals. The group often played at dance academies such as Sport Antillano.
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