Biography
Salvador Adams and Miguel Matamoros, two standout guitarists born in Santiago de Cuba, maintained a close friendship that began in childhood and continued through decades of shared musical work. The Adams presence in Cuban music reaches back to the opening years of the 1920s, when Adams joined Che Toronto and Rufino Ibarra to establish the Toronto Trio. In 1929 the ensemble recorded six selections for the Brunswick label. Roughly thirty years later Adams conceived and wrote a guitar composition titled “Estudios.”
Throughout the 1960s he moved beyond performance, devoting himself instead to the conception and direction of expansive musical productions while helping merge traditional Cuban folk artists drawn from separate regions and contrasting styles; several of the resulting concerts achieved lasting historical status. Under Adams’s leadership, Los Trovadores Santiagueros appeared at the first popular-music festival staged in Santiago’s renowned Amadeo Roldan Theater. Among his other notable compositions are the bolero “Sublime Illusion” and the criolla “Altiva Es la Palma.” Like British rocker Ray Davies, Adams also created a song honoring an individual named “Lola.”
Throughout the 1960s he moved beyond performance, devoting himself instead to the conception and direction of expansive musical productions while helping merge traditional Cuban folk artists drawn from separate regions and contrasting styles; several of the resulting concerts achieved lasting historical status. Under Adams’s leadership, Los Trovadores Santiagueros appeared at the first popular-music festival staged in Santiago’s renowned Amadeo Roldan Theater. Among his other notable compositions are the bolero “Sublime Illusion” and the criolla “Altiva Es la Palma.” Like British rocker Ray Davies, Adams also created a song honoring an individual named “Lola.”