El Cano Estremera: el dueño del soneo

Latin Beat Magazine, August, 1998 by Frank Figueroa

When I rang the doorbell to "El Cano" Estremera's condominium in Trujillo Alto, Puerto Rico, I didn't know what to expect. Certainly we all have preconceived ideas about what a salsa singer should be. The person who welcomed me into his apartment was nothing like I had imagined. He was a well-mannered, articulate, warm and hospitable individual. For the next three hours, we chatted as if we were old friends. I had prepared some questions for the interview, but I soon realized it was better to let this salsa philosopher speak his mind freely. During the course of the afternoon, he gave me an exposition on soneo worthy of the most erudite musicologist. It was full of appropriate analogies and sprinkled with the street savvy of one who grew up in the barrio.

Before we allow El Cano to express his ideas and opinions, here are a few biographical facts. His life began on September 2, 1958, in the old Municipal Hospital in Santurce, Puerto Rico. His parents were Aquilino Estremera and Juanita Colón. There were no professional musicians in his family, but everyone sang. As a young boy, he started playing the bongó to amuse himself. In school he was a better-than-average student, in spite of the fact that his eyesight was limited due to his albino condition. Since he couldn't keep up with the rest of the class in reading, his teachers told him that he should be more realistic and lower his expectations. This was very frustrating to the young man because he was aware that he had the intelligence to do better than most students in his class. He kept hoping that the teachers would change their methods from strictly copying from the black board. El Cano soon realized that the public school setting was stifling him and he turned rebellious. His godparents, Cástulo López and Josefina Rolón, were in fact his second parents. They brought him up and instilled in him a positive self-image. They taught him that the fact that he was an albino and different did not make him inferior, but on the contrary, it made him unique. With this kind of support and much perseverance he managed to finish high school. At that juncture, music presented itself as an alternative. A choice had to be made; he could continue to fight the educational system with its, insensitivity towards students with his condition or he could go into the music business. It didn't take long for El Cano to decide that music was his real vocation.

He had been playing bongó with small groups in his neighborhood and singing coro whenever the opportunity presented itself. At first, he felt a little self-conscious about being an albino and preferred to remain in the background as a sideman. However, when the group needed a vocalist, he overcame his shyness and sang in front of the band. As a vocalist, El Cano performed with Orquesta Mulence and the Bobby Valentín Band. He recorded five LPs with Valentín's orchestra, including the big hit La Boda De Ella. After this, El Cano started his solo career and has recorded the following seven albums: Niño De Oro, Salvaje 88, Dueño Del Soneo I, Dueño Del Soneo II, Cambio De Sentido, y Punto y Aparte. At present, he is making public appearances with his own band in Puerto Rico and the United States, while making preparations for his next recording session.

Here is El Cano Estremera ad libitum, telling us how he developed his style, his definition of soneo and his observations on life in general. 'When I was a young boy I listened to radio station WKBM in Puerto Rico. It featured a wide variety of music that included ballads, música jíbara (rural music,) salsa and merengue. That is when I first heard salsa singers such as Celia Cruz, justo Betancourt, Cheo Feliciano, Héctor Lavoe, and the three Ismaels, (Rivera, Quintana and Miranda). I also listened to jíbaro singers Chuíto el de Bayamón and Ramito, and balladeers José José, Camilo Sesto and Roberto Carlos. I analyzed all their styles and decided that from a blend of afl of them I could select what I liked and eliminate what i didn't like and end up with a totally different style for myself. My singing would have elements taken from all the good singers, but it would still be original.

"The first thing I noticed about salsa singers that I considered a flaw was that they repeated their soneos. In my opinion, a true sonero does not do that. Those singers are what I would call pregoneros, rather than soneros. In this group we have to include even some singers that were soneros at first, but later became lazy after reaching a measure of success and making a few dollars. They forgot about their professional responsibility and ceased being innovative. They opted to stay in the comfortable groove of the standard son format with the set number of measure allowed to the coro and an equal number of the sonero. These soneros may change the words but not the structure of the soneo. The unsophisticated public listens only to the words and doesn't realize that the singer is not introducing any changes to the structure and is being repetitive in his inspirations.