Polo Montañez
| Polo Montañez | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Fernando Borrego Linares |
| Also known as | Guajiro Natural |
| Born |
5 June 1955 El Brujito, Provincia de Artemisa, Cuba |
| Died | 26 November 2002 (aged 47) La Habana |
| Genres | Salsa |
| Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter |
| Instruments | Guitar |
| Years active | 1970s–2002 |
| Labels | Lusafrica |
| Associated acts | |
Polo Montañez (June 5, 1955 - November 26, 2002) was a Cuban singer and songwriter.
Montañez was born Fernando Borrego Linares in Sierra del Rosario, Pinar del Río, in a farm known as El Brujito. At an early age he worked various jobs including driving a tractor, milking cows, making coal, assisting on the family farm, and as a lumberjack. In his spare time, Montañez would go from house to house singing. He began to sing and play in local parties and family gatherings with his father. In those gatherings, he started playing the tumbadora with 7 years old, and the guitar.
"…Polo composes while he's walking or driving a tractor, while he's swimming, under the rain, the sun or the moon, when he's seeding the land... and even when he's sleeping".
He starts to manage a group playing in some touristic places of La Cordillera de los Órganos. He lived in la Cañada del Infierno, Casa Blanca, Finca del Cusco, and in 1972 he occupied one of the houses in the touristic community of Las Terrazas. He composed his first song in 1973, titled "Este tiempo feliz" (This happy time), after that he continued creating, but he stored his songs in a drawer, because he didn't consider them valuable.
When the Complejo Las Terrazas was founded, Polo and his own ensemble of sort started playing at its different touristic installations around 1994, like Hotel Moka, Rancho Curujey and Cafetal Buenavista. Between those tasks, he met a Lusafrica European label owner and in 1999 signed a contract to make a few records. From there was born his first album "Guajiro Natural" and the song "Un montón de Estrellas", it sold in Colombia more than 40,000 copies, obtaining Gold and Platinum Discs, and being recognized as the most listened international artist. He became known as the Guajiro Natural (Natural Countryman) because of his humble personality and songs about the peasant life in Cuba.
With 44 years old he had more than 70 songs written as an autodidact, because he neither had any professional training nor musical knowledge, any others than listening the countryside sounds. He composed with a mix of genres, taking reference from rhythms he heard and knew, so he was making a proper style with themes about outside or personal events, impregnated with rural elements: the ox yoke, the smell of coal, the smell of bateys.
...
Wikipedia