Pepe Sánchez, born José Sánchez (Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city of Cuba and capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province in the south-eastern area of the island, some south-east of the Cuban capital of Havana....

, 19 March 1856 – 3 January 1918), was a Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

n musician, singer and composer. He is known as the father of the trova

Trova

Trova is one of the great roots of the Cuban music tree. In the 19th century a group of itinerant musicians known as trovadores moved around Oriente, especially Santiago de Cuba, earning their living by singing and playing the guitar...

style and the creator of the Cuban bolero

Bolero

Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...

.

Sánchez was originally a tailor, and later the co-owner of a copper mine, and the representative in Santiago de Cuba of a cloth manufacturer in Kingston, Jamaica

Kingston, Jamaica

Kingston is the capital and largest city of Jamaica, located on the southeastern coast of the island. It faces a natural harbour protected by the Palisadoes, a long sand spit which connects the town of Port Royal and the Norman Manley International Airport to the rest of the island...

. He moved in upper and middle class circles in Santiago despite being a mulatto; his work as a businessman and musician brought him recognition and acceptance.

Pepe had some experience in bufo theatre, but had no formal training in music. With remarkable natural talent, he composed numbers in his head and never wrote them down. As a result, most of these numbers are now lost for ever, though some two dozen or so survive because friends and disciples wrote them down. His first bolero, Tristezas, is still remembered today. He also created advertisement jingles, believe it or not, before radio was born. He was the model and teacher for the great trovadores who followed him: Sindo Garay

Sindo Garay

Sindo Garay was born Antonio Gumersindo Garay Garcia . He was the first, the smallest, and perhaps the longest-lived, of the trova artists taught by Pepe Sánchez. Garay was one of the four greats of the trova. Sindo Garay was Spanish & Arawkan descendant...

, Rosendo Ruiz

Rosendo Ruiz

Rosendo Ruiz Suárez was one of the founders of the trova movement in Cuban music. He was originally a tailor, who became a singer, guitarist and composer...

, Manuel Corona

Manuel Corona

Manuel Corona Raimundo was a Cuban trova musician, and a long-term professional rival of Sindo Garay....

 and Alberto Villalón

Alberto Villalón

Alberto Villalón Morales was one of the greatest musicians in the Cuban trova style....

.

Other works of note are Pobre artista, Rosa I, II and III, Cuando oí la expressión de tu canto, Cuba, mi patria querida, Caridad, Esperanza, Naturaleza and Himno a Maceo

Antonio Maceo Grajales

Lt. General José Antonio de la Caridad Maceo y Grajales was second-in-command of the Cuban Army of Independence....

.

There is one modern recording of his music:

• La música de Pepe Sánchez. Siboney LD–315