Compay Segundo

Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz was born on 18 November 1907 in Siboney, in eastern Cuba, a place known as the birthplace of the Cuban son and trova. He grew up in a rich Afro-Cuban cultural world, and began as a clarinettist and guitarist, before moving to Havana. He was a trova guitarist, singer and composer, and is known as Compay Segundo, from the second voice he sang in his groups, compay meaning pal or compadre.

In the 1940s he formed the duo Los Compadres with Lorenzo Hierrezuelo, taking the second voice and playing the tres, a small Cuban guitar. They became one of the most successful Cuban duos of their time, taking the music of the Santiago mountains across Latin America, and he recalled their thirteen-year partnership as the happiest time of his career. Los Compadres broke up in 1953, and he went on performing and, for a time, rolling cigars in a tobacco factory.

In the late 1980s he joined Eliades Ochoa's Cuarteto Patria, and in 1995 released Antología, with a new recording of Chan Chan, the song he had composed in the 1980s. Then, in 1996, he joined veteran Cuban musicians including Rubén González, Ibrahim Ferrer and Eliades Ochoa, together with the American guitarist Ry Cooder, to record the Buena Vista Social Club album, released in 1997.

Chan Chan, the album's opening track, with its four unforgettable opening chords, made him famous around the world. The album won the 1998 Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album and sold millions of copies, and Wim Wenders's 1999 film about the musicians took them to Amsterdam, New York, London and Tokyo. Compay, then in his nineties, became a global star, and performed Chan Chan for Pope John Paul II at the Vatican.

He said he hoped to live to 115. He died on 13 July 2003, aged 95, at his home in Havana's Miramar district, after suffering from kidney problems. He had received the Order Félix Varela, and is remembered as a vital link with Cuba's rich Spanish- and African-influenced musical past.