We have been orphaned of Santiago Feliu . His followers and acquaintances still cannot believe his sudden death this week, they refuse to believe it or internalize it. Among the great friends of Santy, as he was called by his relatives, troubadour Frank Delgado stands out.
“I knew him so well that I do not know where to begin, I do not understand how people can settle as quickly and write about Santiago, I’m still very confused and do not want to start with the truism that everyone uses on how I met him. ” he told OnCuba in his home where we arrived to reminisce the great lefty. For over an hour we talked with the author of La otra orilla about loss and his unforgettable friendship with Santi .
“It’s unexpected news that I resisted believing. When we see the photos now posted on the Internet in which he is seen with his youthful image makes his death even more terrifying. Santiago was an incarnation of eternal youth, for what he seemed like that physically and in his life and was always a transgressor and transgressors always have that aura of always being very young. I could not understand when somebody called me; I was in the Emergencia hospital where he arrived lifeless. “
What could you say about the rumors of his sudden death?
There has been much speculation about the life of Santiago, that if he was an epicurean and was a victim of the pleasures of life, but since he had debuted as hypertensive he cared more. A year and a month ago he had remarried, I remember it because the day before we did a concert together in the Raquel Revuelta Theatre, decided to make this tribute to the forty years of the Trova singing songs of traditional trova and refused to rehearse a lot because it was in his fifth wedding preparations with which he was very excited about.
The last time I saw him was in November when I saw Gema, his widow, who was pregnant and looked very happy. He was also very happy because his son Adriano who lived in Barcelona I decided to return to Cuba to live with him. Economically it was a guy who never did quite well, he was an over spender, had great opportunities and contacts but his relationship with money was terrible, could hardly make ends meet what stressed him out a lot. Maybe he was very stressed by not having the financial support to meet the expenses of his children. I do not know how people can talk at times like these. In the waking we did in the Cuban Institute of Music I wanted to tell a couple of stories but I did not want to steal the show. He wouldn’t have liked another taking the spotlight, he wouldn’t have forgiven me or his ego so I just read the fine chronicle wrote Fito Paez.
How did Fito find out?
I gave him the news immediately it was confirmed for friends to know. We had a phone with internet in the hospital and I posted in my Facebook. There Fito saw this and immediately called Ivette at the International Relations of the Ministry of Culture, which was also in the hospital and confirmed the news. The news spread like wildfire on the half hour I had received calls from many people from around the world.
How do you remember Santiago?
Santiago was not an angel. He was a tough guy. His work was, as Fito said, tucked into a kind of shrine. Through his own poetry in recent times he was as inside a shell. There was plenty of ostracism and little socialization in his latest songs, despite being one of the first critics with songs like Troubadours and Por Cuantos Ladoshay que defender la Paz, hard songs for that time. He always fulfilled that maxim of troubadours to make songs for himself, he wrote the themes about his personal experiences.
Lately he was not a prolific troubadour, but he made many songs he could think of few letters as it is happening to me, because it is difficult to find novel and interesting topics. He said he had stopped being a troubadour to become a singer , he used to say he had learned a bit of piano when young , and since he was given a keyboard he spent long hours playing it and even wanted to accompany me to that instrument when we sang together, what I always refused .
Many of his songs in the CD Ay la vida were conceived after the arrival of the piano. Santiago recently took a time of silence in which he almost did not make presentations because dedicated his life to his personal project. He did not like to sing in private or state bars where he was paid, he did not stand people paying more attention to their drinks than to him in a night club. He always said he had to learn to work in the Cuban night. He did his best attempts at the National Theatre with a cycle that was called Lo que la radio nos dejo where with a great band with beautiful arrangements he performed songs from the sixties and seventies in the Hispanic world.
Somehow the night overtook him. He didn’t like El Sauce either; I took him there on several occasions, even last week he was scheduled there. As he put it “my song was an art song that did not make any concessions,” people had to follow with all of the law. His favorite song was Iceberg, said it was where he had achieved the best music and lyrics. Both very gimmicky; in 2004 we did together a tour in Mexico in which he told everyone that he was Santiago Feliu the author of Iceberg, it was a song a little dense, but he managed to make it well known, sometimes sang it twice.
Gerardo Alfonso, Carlos Varela, Santiago and you were of the same generation. What was the Santiago of those early years like?
He was the first of our generation to have a large drawing power. Our generation was not exactly a soundtrack of the revolution, it was more of a critical consciousness perhaps why we did not get any support from Casa de las Américas and the Ministry of Culture, we were professionals because we worked , we didn’t belong to any company. We went professional afterwards because Silvio and Pablo helped us a lot. We started with very few followers; we filled the theater with our friends. Santiago was the first of us to make a record with which we were very concerned because we went almost daily to San Miguel studies to see how that worked. Then he made huge concerts in Chile, Argentina. He sang with Fito Paez, León Gieco, who were gods to us. And that Santiago could get to them seemed to us the first international link for our generation.
What did you always admired in him?
He was very strong on stage; he played brilliantly with his left hand. His song had an average frequency that those of us who play with the right hand don’t have. He was very fast. He was always so distanced from reality; I had to always give my psychotherapy to get him back to earth, between melody and poetry so he was lost. He was always red, never misled anyone about his political affiliation, with all the risks that this entailed, in times like these that people do not want to compromise. He did burn the ships, something I always admired in him.
Why do you say he was not exactly an angel?
I promised him that we would never be a in concert together after that of December 2012. He did the opposite to what we had rehearsed, behaved very badly , got up when I sang , so he was very stressful, he was spoiled . I had it clear; I was not going to sing anymore with him, it was clear until yesterday. He used to call me old curmudgeon in public. With his unbridled ego he liked overwhelm people and that day he did it to me. He sang the songs they sing somewhat programmed not to crush. He had a big ego, as he said himself a misplaced ego. He was not an angel; there were many people in his time that had quarrels with him for his personality. His nonchalance sometimes sounded insensitive. He was so wrong sometimes and that drove people away from him. I always liked him a lot, I never held a grudge despite his stuff, but after that concert I confess that I wanted to strangle him.
