Faustino Oramas

Faustino Oramas , known by his stage name El Guayabero , (born June 4, 1911 in Holguín , † March 27, 2007 ibid) was a Cuban musician.

Faustino Oramas Osorio came from a very poor Afro-Cuban family. He may have been older than his official date of birth indicated. Some contemporaries attribute it to a life of more than a hundred years. As a traveling singer ( juglar ) he has traveled to the island of Cuba since his youth. His songs, which he accompanied with the guitar, dealt with everyday life. Because of the wit in his songs, which were often spiced with ambiguities and small personalities, he was a very popular singer in his homeland. However, his main domain was the Son . At the age of 15 he sang and played the maracas in Septeto La Tropical , with his brother at his side.

Faustino Oramas had the reputation of being an admirer of women. He owes his stage name to a love affair. He had to flee a village from the wrath of the betrayed husband. He processed this experience in 1938 in the song El Guayabero . In 1960 this song was added to the program by Pacho Alonso and his Bocucos and in this way became a worldwide known title.

Oramas was a supporter of the Cuban Revolution, which he said had brought him out of misery . Despite frequent such claims in the press and other publications, he was never a member of the Buena Vista Social Club , but performed with many famous Cuban musicians of his genre, such as Pablo Milanés , Silvio Rodríguez and the singer Omara Portuondo . In 1998 his last album, El tren de la vida (The Train of Life) was released. A few months before his death, in 2006, he was seen regularly performing on stage, his inevitable Panama hat on his head, always quick-witted, clad in shiny vests that were adorned with medals.

Oramas died in the Lenin Hospital in his hometown, to which he had been admitted weeks before because of various complications, of the consequences of his liver cancer.