Pedrito Calvo
Singer with Los Van Van: for almost thirty years, from 1974 to 2001, Pedrito Calvo was one of the voices of Cuba's biggest dance band.
About
Pedro Calvo Rojas, known as Pedrito Calvo, was born on 17 April 1942 in Guanabacoa, near Havana.
In 1974 he joined Juan Formell's Los Van Van. With the band he won a Grammy.
- Earlier hits: he sang lead on Que le den candela and Sandunguera.
- Late 1990s: he was one of three lead singers, alongside Mayito Rivera and Roberto Hernández. They took turns on lead and backing vocals. From that time come El negro está cocinando, Mi chocolate and La fruta.
Afterwards
After leaving in 2001 he started his own orchestra, Pedrito Calvo y La Justicia, recording mostly new versions of his Van Van songs. He also performed with Buena Vista Social Club and the Afro-Cuban All Stars. His son Pedrito Calvo Junior leads his own group.
📝 Sources
Songo is the direct bridge between traditional Cuban music and timba. Developed by Los Van Van in the early 1970s, it rewired Cuban popular music by absorbing funk, rock, and jazz into the Afro-Cuban rhythmic foundation — and laid the groundwork that timba would build on.
Lees meer >Cuban Dances Originating in Havana
Havana, the cultural heartbeat of Cuba, played a central role in the creation and evolution of several iconic Cuban dances. Some were born directly in the capital, while others were transformed there into the forms we know today.
Lees meer >Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and the birthplace of some of the world's most influential music and dance traditions. African, Spanish, and French cultural streams collided here over centuries of colonial history, producing an extraordinary creative culture that exported itself across the globe.
Lees meer >EGREM (Empresa de Grabaciones y Ediciones Musicales) is Cuba's state recording company, founded in 1964 after the Revolution nationalized all private recording labels. Its main facility, Estudios Areíto in Havana, is where virtually every important Cuban recording from the Revolution era was made.
Lees meer >The Buena Vista Social Club was originally a members' club in Havana's Buena Vista neighborhood, active in the 1940s and 50s as a gathering place for musicians playing Son, Danzón, Bolero, and Guaracha. It closed after the Revolution but was immortalized in 1997 when Ry Cooder brought together a group of surviving veteran musicians to record an album under the same name.
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