The Peanut Vendor
Encyclopedia
The Peanut Vendor is a Cuba
n song
based on a street-seller's cry, and known as a pregón
. It is possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician. The Peanut Vendor has been recorded more than 160 times, sold over a million copies of the sheet music, and was the first million-selling 78rpm of Cuban music.
musician, Moises Simons
(1889–1945). It sold over a million copies of sheet music
for E.B. Marks Inc., and this netted $100,000 in royalties for Simons by 1943. Its success led to a 'rumba craze' in the US and Europe which lasted through the 1940s. The consequences of the Peanut Vendor's success were quite far-reaching.
The number was first sung and recorded by the vedette
Rita Montaner
in 1927 or 1928 for Columbia Records
. The biggest record sales for El Manisero came from the recording made by Don Azpiazú
and his Havana Casino Orchestra in New York in 1930 for Victor Records. The band included a number of star musicians such as Julio Cueva
(trumpet) and Mario Bauza
(saxophone); Antonio Machín
was the singer. There seems to be no authoritative account of the number of 78rpm records of this recording sold by Victor; but it seems likely that the number would have exceeded the sheet music sales, making it the first million-selling record of Cuban (or even latin) music.
The lyrics
were in a style based on street vendors' cries, a pregón
; and the rhythm was a son
, so technically this was a son-pregón. On the record label, however, it was called a rhumba-fox trot, not only the wrong genre, but misspelled as well. After this, the term rumba was used as a general label for Cuban music, as salsa
is today, because the numerous Cuban terms were not understood abroad. Rumba was easy to say and remember.
On the published score both music and lyrics are attributed to Simons, though there is a persistent story that they were written by Gonzalo G. de Mello in Havana the night before Montaner was due to record it in New York. Cristóbal Díaz says "For various reasons, we have doubts about this version... 'El manisero' was one of those rare cases in popular music where an author got immediate and substantial financial benefits... logically Mello would have tried to reclaim his authorship of the lyrics, but that did not occur." The second attack on the authorship of the lyrics came from none other than the great Fernando Ortíz
. For Ortíz, the true author was an unknown Havana peanut seller, of the second half of the 19th century, who served as the basis for a danza
written by Gottschalk
. Of course, it may well be that elements of the song were to be found in real life. The English lyrics are by L. Wolfe Gilbert
and Marion Sunshine
; the latter was Azpizú's sister-in-law
, who toured with the band in the U.S.A. as singer. The English lyrics are, in the opinion of Sublette, of almost unsurpassed banality.
The Peanut Vendor had a second life as a hit number when Stan Kenton
recorded it with his big band for Capitol Records
, in 1947. This was also a great and long-lasting hit, re-recorded by Kenton twice with the band, and played by him later in life as a piano solo. The Kenton version was entirely instrumental, with the rhythmic pattern emphasised by trombones.
National Recording Registry
by the National Recording Preservation Board
, which noted:
Several films included versions of "El Manisero". It appeared in The Cuban Song by MGM (1931), with Ernesto Lecuona
as musical advisor; Cary Grant
sang it in the film Only Angels Have Wings
(1939); Judy Garland
sang a fragment in the film A Star is Born
(1954). More recently, it was featured in the Carnaval scene of Jose Luis Cuerda's La lengua de las mariposas
(Butterfly).
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 song
Song
In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...
based on a street-seller's cry, and known as a pregón
Pregón
Pregón, a Spanish word meaning announcement or street-seller's cry, has a particular meaning in Cuban music, and Latin American music generally...
. It is possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician. The Peanut Vendor has been recorded more than 160 times, sold over a million copies of the sheet music, and was the first million-selling 78rpm of Cuban music.
-
- Maní, maní, maní…
- Si te quieres por el pico divertir,
- Cómprame un cucuruchito de maní...
-
- Maní, el manisero se va,
- Caballero, no se vayan a dormir,
- Sin comprarme un cucurucho de maní.
History
The score and lyrics of El Manisero were by the Cuban son of a BasqueBasque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
musician, Moises Simons
Moisés Simons
Moisés Simons , was a leading Cuban composer, pianist and orchestra leader. He was the composer of the Peanut Vendor, possibly the most famous piece of music created by a Cuban musician...
(1889–1945). It sold over a million copies of sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
for E.B. Marks Inc., and this netted $100,000 in royalties for Simons by 1943. Its success led to a 'rumba craze' in the US and Europe which lasted through the 1940s. The consequences of the Peanut Vendor's success were quite far-reaching.
The number was first sung and recorded by the vedette
Vedette
The French military term vedette , also spelled vidette, migrated into English and other languages to refer to a mounted sentry or outpost, who has the function of bringing information, giving signals or warnings of danger, etc., to a main body of troops...
Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner
Rita Montaner, born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda , was a Cuban singer, pianist, actress and star of stage, film, radio and television. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette , and she was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on...
in 1927 or 1928 for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. The biggest record sales for El Manisero came from the recording made by Don Azpiazú
Don Azpiazu
Don Azpiazú was a leading Cuban orchestral director in the 1920s and 30s. His band introduced authentic Cuban dance music and Cuban musical instruments to a wide audience in the USA...
and his Havana Casino Orchestra in New York in 1930 for Victor Records. The band included a number of star musicians such as Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva
Julio Cueva was a Cuban trumpeter, composer and band leader. He was an important figure in the spread of Cuban popular music in the 1930s.- Life and career :...
(trumpet) and Mario Bauza
Mario Bauza
Mario Bauzá was an important Cuban musician. He was one of the first to introduce Latin music to the United States by bringing Cuban musical styles into the New York jazz scene...
(saxophone); Antonio Machín
Antonio Machín
Antonio Machín was a Cuban singer and musician. His version of El Manisero, recorded in New York, 1930, with Don Azpiazú's orchestra, was the first million record seller for a Cuban artist...
was the singer. There seems to be no authoritative account of the number of 78rpm records of this recording sold by Victor; but it seems likely that the number would have exceeded the sheet music sales, making it the first million-selling record of Cuban (or even latin) music.
The lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
were in a style based on street vendors' cries, a pregón
Pregón
Pregón, a Spanish word meaning announcement or street-seller's cry, has a particular meaning in Cuban music, and Latin American music generally...
; and the rhythm was a son
Son (music)
The Son cubano is a style of music that originated in Cuba and gained worldwide popularity in the 1930s. Son combines the structure and elements of Spanish canción and the Spanish guitar with African rhythms and percussion instruments of Bantu and Arará origin...
, so technically this was a son-pregón. On the record label, however, it was called a rhumba-fox trot, not only the wrong genre, but misspelled as well. After this, the term rumba was used as a general label for Cuban music, as salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
is today, because the numerous Cuban terms were not understood abroad. Rumba was easy to say and remember.
On the published score both music and lyrics are attributed to Simons, though there is a persistent story that they were written by Gonzalo G. de Mello in Havana the night before Montaner was due to record it in New York. Cristóbal Díaz says "For various reasons, we have doubts about this version... 'El manisero' was one of those rare cases in popular music where an author got immediate and substantial financial benefits... logically Mello would have tried to reclaim his authorship of the lyrics, but that did not occur." The second attack on the authorship of the lyrics came from none other than the great Fernando Ortíz
Fernando Ortiz
Fernando Ortiz Fernández was a Cuban essayist, ethnomusicologist and scholar of Afro-Cuban culture. Ortiz was a prolific polymath dedicated to exploring, recording, and understanding all aspects of indigenous Cuban culture...
. For Ortíz, the true author was an unknown Havana peanut seller, of the second half of the 19th century, who served as the basis for a danza
Danza
Danza is a musical genre that originated in Ponce, a city in southern Puerto Rico. It is a popular turn-of-the-twentieth-century ballroom dance genre slightly similar to the waltz. Both the danza and its cousin the contradanza are sequence dances, performed to a pattern, usually of squares, to...
written by Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works...
. Of course, it may well be that elements of the song were to be found in real life. The English lyrics are by L. Wolfe Gilbert
L. Wolfe Gilbert
Louis Wolfe Gilbert was a Russian-born American songwriter.-Biography:Born in Odessa, Russian Empire, Gilbert moved to the United States as a young man and eventually established himself as one of the leading songwriters on Tin Pan Alley.Gilbert began his career touring with John L...
and Marion Sunshine
Marion Sunshine
Marion Sunshine , was an American actress. She appeared on Broadway in musicals such as Going Up. She appeared in 26 films between 1908 and 1916....
; the latter was Azpizú's sister-in-law
Sister-in-law
A sister-in-law is the sister of one's spouse, the wife of one's sibling, or sometimes the wife of one's spouse's sibling...
, who toured with the band in the U.S.A. as singer. The English lyrics are, in the opinion of Sublette, of almost unsurpassed banality.
The Peanut Vendor had a second life as a hit number when Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
recorded it with his big band for Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, in 1947. This was also a great and long-lasting hit, re-recorded by Kenton twice with the band, and played by him later in life as a piano solo. The Kenton version was entirely instrumental, with the rhythmic pattern emphasised by trombones.
Legacy and influence
The Peanut Vendor has been recorded more than 160 times. Because of its cultural importance, in 2005 The Peanut Vendor was included into the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
National Recording Registry
National Recording Registry
The National Recording Registry is a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States." The registry was established by the National Recording Preservation Act of 2000, which created the National Recording...
by the National Recording Preservation Board
National Recording Preservation Board
The United States National Recording Preservation Board selects recorded sounds for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The National Recording Registry was initiated to maintain and preserve "sound recordings that are culturally, historically or aesthetically...
, which noted:
- "It is the first American recording of an authentic Latin dance style. This recording launched a decade of 'rumbamania', introducing U.S. listeners to Cuban percussion instruments and Cuban rhythms."
Several films included versions of "El Manisero". It appeared in The Cuban Song by MGM (1931), with Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona
Ernesto Lecuona y Casado was a Cuban composer and pianist of Canarian father and Cuban mother, and worldwide fame. He composed over six hundred pieces, mostly in the Cuban vein, and was a pianist of exceptional quality....
as musical advisor; Cary Grant
Cary Grant
Archibald Alexander Leach , better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English actor who later took U.S. citizenship...
sang it in the film Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings
Only Angels Have Wings is a movie directed by Howard Hawks, starring Cary Grant and Jean Arthur. It is generally regarded as being among Hawks' finest films, particularly in its portrayal of the professionalism of the pilots, its atmosphere, and the flying sequences.It inspired the 1983 television...
(1939); Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
sang a fragment in the film A Star is Born
A Star Is Born
A Star Is Born may refer to:* A Star Is Born , starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March, directed by William A. Wellman* A Star Is Born , starring Judy Garland and James Mason, directed by George Cukor...
(1954). More recently, it was featured in the Carnaval scene of Jose Luis Cuerda's La lengua de las mariposas
Butterfly (1999 film)
Butterfly's Tongue is the English language DVD release title for , a 1999 Spanish film directed by José Luis Cuerda. The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936...
(Butterfly).
Selected recordings
Of the 160+ recorded versions, these are perhaps the most significant versions:- 1928 Rita MontanerRita MontanerRita Montaner, born Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda , was a Cuban singer, pianist, actress and star of stage, film, radio and television. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette , and she was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on...
for Columbia recordsColumbia RecordsColumbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
. This was the first recording. Tumbao TCD 46. - 1930 Don AzpiazúDon AzpiazuDon Azpiazú was a leading Cuban orchestral director in the 1920s and 30s. His band introduced authentic Cuban dance music and Cuban musical instruments to a wide audience in the USA...
and his Havana Casino Orchestra Victor Records. The version which started the rumba craze; singer Antonio Machín. Harlequin HQ 10. - 1930 Antonio MachínAntonio MachínAntonio Machín was a Cuban singer and musician. His version of El Manisero, recorded in New York, 1930, with Don Azpiazú's orchestra, was the first million record seller for a Cuban artist...
with the Cuarteto Machín. Harlequin HQ 24. - 1930 California Ramblers. Columbia 2351. First recording by a U.S. group.
- 1931? Sexteto Okeh (Los Jardineros) Okeh 14027.
- 1931 Louis ArmstrongLouis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
and his Sebastian New Cotton Club Orchestra OKeh 41478. First version by a U.S. jazz group; also on ParlophoneParlophoneParlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...
PMC 7098. - 1947 Stan KentonStan KentonStanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
. The second largest selling 78rpm version. First significant instrumental version. - 1949 Django ReinhardtDjango ReinhardtDjango Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...