Bobby Capó
Encyclopedia
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
. He usually combined ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
s with classical music, Puerto Rican folk elements and even Andalusia
Andalusia
Andalusia is the most populous and the second largest in area of the autonomous communities of Spain. The Andalusian autonomous community is officially recognised as a nationality of Spain. The territory is divided into eight provinces: Huelva, Seville, Cádiz, Córdoba, Málaga, Jaén, Granada and...
n music, as to produce many memorable Latino pop songs which featured elaborate, dramatic lyrics.
Capó was born in Coamo, one of Puerto Rico's oldest settlements, located in the Island's south quadrant. After earning a strong reputation as a likable, versatile singer, he adopted his stage name (Rodriguez is one of Puerto Rico's most common surnames, and he opted to use his mother's less common one instead) and emigrated to the city of New York, early in the 1940s. He then joined Xavier Cugat's
Xavier Cugat
Xavier Cugat was a Spanish-American bandleader who spent his formative years in Havana, Cuba. A trained violinist and arranger, he was a key personality in the spread of Latin music in United States popular music. He was also a cartoonist and a successful businessman...
orchestra. From that moment on, he went on to become an idol all over Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
.
Capó was a polifacetic entertainer. Apart from singing, he was also a television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
host, as well as technical and musical director. However, his somewhat intimate songs are what Capó was -and is- best known for.
Capó was a prolific song writer and wrote for many of his contemporaries. Many of the songs he wrote were smash hits in Puerto Rico, and occasionally in the rest of Latin America. One of his self-penned songs was El Negro Bembón ("The Big-Lipped Black Guy") a song not meant to be a derogatory song, since it half-humorously denounced the racial killing of an Afro-Puerto Rican (in a country whose racial relations, while sometimes acrimonious, are slightly more tolerant than the norm elsewhere). The song was a smash hit for Cortijo y su Combo
Rafael Cortijo
Rafael Cortijo , was a Puerto Rican musician, orchestra leader, and composer.As a child, Cortijo became interested in Caribbean music and enjoyed the works of some of the era's most successful Plena music musicians...
in the mid-1950s. The song, with local circumstances and character name changed, became "El Gitano Antón,", a huge hit for Catalan rumba
Catalan rumba
The Catalan rumba is a genre of music that developed in Barcelona's Romani community beginning in the 1950s. Its rhythms are derived from the flamenco rumba, with influences from Cuban music and rock and roll....
singer Peret
Peret
Pere Pubill Calaf , known as Peret, is a Catalan Spanish Romaní singer, guitar player and composer, and the main representative of Catalan Rumba. Peret is known for the song Borriquito, and he represented Spain at the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974 and performed at the Olympic Games in Barcelona...
in Spain around the mid 1960s.
Another of Capó's songs is "Sin Fe" ("Without Faith"), sometimes known as "Poquita Fe" ("Little Faith"). It became a proper hit in Puerto Rico when recorded by Felipe Rodriguez
Felipe Rodríguez
Luis Felipe Rodriguez, better known as Felipe "La Voz" Rodríguez, born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, was a singer of boleros. He is regarded as the most popular Puerto Rican male singer of the 1950s based on record sales and live audience records...
in the mid-1950s, and a huge international hit for Jose Feliciano
José Feliciano
José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...
in the mid-1960s.
Capo's composition describing his homesickness for Puerto Rico, "Soñando con Puerto Rico" ("Dreaming of Puerto Rico"), is revered as an anthem by Puerto Ricans residing abroad. Another of his songs, "De Las Montañas Venimos" is a Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
standard in Puerto Rico. His best known song, however, is Piel Canela (Cinnamon Skin). Capó recorded its most famous version in Havana
Havana
Havana is the capital city, province, major port, and leading commercial centre of Cuba. The city proper has a population of 2.1 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of — making it the largest city in the Caribbean region, and the most populous...
at the request of Rogelio Martínez, the leader of the Sonora Matancera
Sonora Matancera
La Sonora Matancera is a long-time band. Led by guitarist and vocalist Rogelio Martínez, La Sonora Matancera has been called, by the Guinness Book of World Records, "the group with the longest duration."...
, who asked him to sing pieces of his recently composed songs, and who recognized the song's potential as a hit. The song was later covered by many artists, including fellow Puerto Rican Daniel Santos
Daniel Santos (singer)
Daniel Santos was a singer and composer of boleros, and an overall performer of multiple Caribbean music genres, including guaracha, plena and rumba...
in an emblematic rendition, Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt
Linda Ronstadt is an American popular music recording artist. She has earned eleven Grammy Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, an ALMA Award, numerous United States and internationally certified gold, platinum and multiplatinum albums, in addition to Tony Award and Golden...
, Nat King Cole
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles , known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres...
, Tin Tan, José Feliciano
José Feliciano
José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...
, and Natalia LaFourcade
Natalia Lafourcade
Natalia Lafourcade is a Mexican pop-rock singer and songwriter. Her band's name is Natalia y La Forquetina.-Biography:...
. The song became the main theme for a Mexican movie of the same name in the late 1950s. So was "Luna de Miel en Puerto Rico" ("Puerto Rican Honeymoon"), a latter-day cha-cha-cha which was also the theme for an eponymous movie, co-produced by Mexicans and Puerto Ricans in the early 1960s.
His most famous interpretation came as a member of Cugat's orchestra. Bésame Mucho (Kiss me a Lot), a standard by Mexican songwriter Consuelo Velazquez
Consuelo Velázquez
Consuelo Velázquez was a Mexican concert pianist, songwriter and recording artist.According to her obituary, she was 88 years old when she died...
, was such a large hit that it can still be occasionally heard on television commercials and movie
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
s. After Capo's and Cugat's version dozens of artists have covered the song, including The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
.
Capó had married Irma Nydia Vázquez, a former beauty pageant queen and the daughter of a wealthy Puerto Rican industrialist, in 1948. The marriage was frowned upon by her family, and he wrote "El Bardo" ("The Bard") inspired by this. "El Bardo" tells the story of a pauper who died heartbroken after his wealthy love prospect marries another man, and finishes up with her (also heartbroken) reaction about his passing. The song was a huge hit for Felipe Rodriguez
Felipe Rodríguez
Luis Felipe Rodriguez, better known as Felipe "La Voz" Rodríguez, born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, was a singer of boleros. He is regarded as the most popular Puerto Rican male singer of the 1950s based on record sales and live audience records...
in the early 1950s, and has been covered by many others (including a humorous parody by Jose Feliciano
José Feliciano
José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...
in which he replaces the romantic couple with a taxi and a bus)
Capó was later prone to extramarital affairs, and was candid enough to write and sing songs about his personal experiences, leaving very little to the imagination in his lyrics. During the early 1960s Capó lived in Mexico City, along with his family. The Mexican president at the time suggested that all local songwriters write an ode to John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
prior to a state visit by the United States president. Capó decided to write a song about Jacqueline Kennedy instead ("Jack, Jack, Jackie"), even suggesting in the lyrics that the president to look after her, for he would make passes to her otherwise. According to biographers, Capó was bold enough to hum his song while in the receiving line at the Mexican presidential residence, while waiting for the Kennedys.
During the 1970s, Capó divorced moving permanently to New York City. He had strong political beliefs and worked for the Puerto Rico Department of Labor's Division of Migration. He continued to have special engagements at exclusive "black tie" clubs entertaining the Spanish elite classes and occasionally flying back to Puerto Rico during the rest of this decade and most of the 1980s, to have special appearances at television programs and dedications as well.
Capó died at his New York City home of natural causes. He was survived by his widow Maria Da Gloria De Oliveira and his seven children: Felix Manuel "Junior" Rodriguez,Irma "Mimi" Rodriguez-Lopez, Roberto "Bobito" Rodriguez, Soraya Rodriguez, Waldo Rodriguez, Jacqueline "Jackie" Rodriguez, and his youngest Zahera Rodriguez; He also fathered, but never recognized many other children.
Some Puerto Ricans
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
consider Capó as one of the greatest singing legends from the island.
See also
- List of famous Puerto Ricans
- Black history in Puerto Rico
- Puerto Rican Songwriters