Customer Reviews

A Man and His Music: Poeta Del Pueblo

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As written before, this is a great collection of Rubén's Fania work with excellent liner notes. One might argue an omission of a song here and there, but overall it covers a lot. The tracks are arranged in chronological order and the artwork includes album pictures, concert photos, and a hand-written page of the Pedro Navaja chart. The mastering made Rubén's Fania music sound the best I've heard so far, with a balance of the lows and highs and an increased volume that matches today's music.

The tracks from Maestra Vida ("Manuela", "El nacimiento de Ramiro", and "Maestra vida") have part of their intro text and music taken out. It seems understandable to edit those tracks because the songs might sound weird out of context. What seems unforgivable is the fact that they faded the ending of the song "Maestra vida" leaving out a minute and a half portion that includes a climactic mambo section. I understand that CD 2 is almost 80 minutes long, but they could have picked a shorter song from one of the "filler" LP's and left "Maestra vida" in its full length.

I would have given this double CD 5 stars, but given the importance of the Maestra Vida album, I gave it 4.

This 2-CD set is the most comprehensive collection of Ruben's Fania recordings issued to date. Of course, you get most of his big solo hits as well as some of his earlier ones with Ray Barretto, Willie Colon and even the Fania All Stars. The essay by Ernesto Lechner is also very informative and covers aspects of Ruben's entire career. Despite its being limited to Ruben's 1975-84 Fania recordings this package really deserves to be in your collection.

I rediscovered this artist listening to Pandora - I am so glad I did. I can't believe I missed this for quite a few years - Ruben Blades is #1 in my book.

I bought this CD as a gift for my husband who is a musician and long-standing fan of Ruben Blades (they both are from Panamá)and when he "discovered" it where I had "left" it, he had a huge smile from ear to ear. Not only does it have great music (2 CD's), but there were songs that he had not collected yet and he has quite an extensive collection. The CD case has some great old photos of Ruben with musicians that are either no longer around or no longer performing(much to his delight)and the liner notes are excellent along with the little booklet insert. It was almost like watching a young boy on Christmas Day! This is truly a treasure CD for fans of Ruben Blades and I highly recommend that you add it to your collection or gift it to someone who can appreciate it and add it to theirs. Excellent.

This is a 2 CD collection Earlier recordings with Fania - likely before ugly politics broke them apart and Blades started recording on his own work which is generally more prolific - but this is still a FABULOUS collection!

This is the Fania/Código release of the Fania/Emusica A Man and His Music: Poeta Del Pueblo but less expensive and with different and better artwork. The quality of the audio and the liner notes are the same.
Read my review of the Fania/Emusica version for the 4-star explanation.