Ruben Blades

Panamanian singer Rubén Blades is as much a political activist as he is a singer and actor. As one of the premier performers of salsa music, he is an innovator who has broadened the genre's appeal far beyond its Latin-American base.

Son of a police officer and an actress mother, Blades was influenced as a child by his maternal grandmother, a Rosicrucian vegetarian who exposed him early to American films. Rock & roll also affected him; when he joined his brother's band in 1963, he sang in English. The Canal Zone riots of 1964, however, checked his romance with stateside culture, and he began delving into salsa, the Afro-Cuban music powered by horns and percussion. While playing with local bands, he worked on a law degree at the University of Panama; he took time off to make an album in New York City with Latin musician Pete Rodriguez but returned to finish his studies.

In 1974, after a stint as an attorney for the Bank of Panama, Blades moved to New York. Four years later he became the songwriter/vocalist for the Willie Colon Combo. The pair released Siembra, one of salsa’s most popular albums, and for Fania, the major salsa label, Colon produced Blades’ first records. In 1982 Blades formed his own band, Seis del Solar. Signing him as its first Latin artist, Elektra released Buscando America, an album that stirred controversy among salsa purists for its use of synthesizers and rock-inflected instrumentation. In addition, its lyrics, inspired by Blades’ friend, Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude), were somber, poetic, and political, a sharp departure from salsa’s traditionally escapist themes. With 1985 came Escenas, featuring a duet with Linda Ronstadt; throughout the ’80s Blades continued to record for both Fania and Elektra, for the latter releasing Nothing but the Truth, his English-language singing debut.

Blades had also been busy at other pursuits. Immediately after his Elektra debut, Blades enrolled at Harvard, where he earned a master’s degree in international law. In 1985 he starred in the salsa film Crossover Dreams, drawing notice for his acting and, in the process, helping to raise the profile of salsa. Subsequent roles in forgettable fare (Critical Condition, Fatal Beauty) didn’t seem to affect his acting career, and he regained credibility with television roles and parts in such films as Waiting for Salazar, The Milagro Beanfield War, Mo’ Better Blues, and The Two Jakes. For the movies When the Mountains Tremble, Caminos Verdes, and Q&A, Blades composed scores.

All along, Blades remained active in politics. In 1992 he launched Papa Egoro, a Panamanian political party dedicated to social justice. The next year, he announced his temporary retirement from music and acting in order to pursue the Panamanian presidency in 1994; he lost that race.

As the ’90s progressed, Blades continued to expand artistically, starring in Paul Simon’s 1998 Broadway musical The Capeman, receiving a Grammy (his third) for La Rosa de los Vientos, and in 1999 releasing Tiempos, considered by some critics to be his finest work.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)