I didn\u2019t have to ask around much, they knew right away who she was. It\u2019s really a shame, but very few like her remain. That is why I came to this bar. The writers were right. Places that operate at night should never be seen in daylight. All the dust, all the sorrows recounted by those great boleros seem to come out of the songs and drift in the air like haggard daytime ghosts. There she is! As soon as she hears me arrive, she lights up, and it\u2019s as if all of the vitality of yesteryear had returned to her body; it\u2019s no longer necessary to ask her.<\/p>\n
Yes, Mr. Journalist, I am the “record-player” they told you about. I\u2019m not going to tell you my age; you don\u2019t ask women that question, But I can tell you about her because I was there, you know. So, you want to write about Freddy? Well, yes, I knew her. She was a servant, and she would come at night to the place where I worked. Moreover, I heard her sing, right there, sitting next to me, at the bar of the Bar Celeste. Sometimes she was accompanied by one of my records, but other times it was just her own voice. Which was enough and more than enough, to be honest.<\/p>\n
What was her voice like? Let me tell you, it was enormous, almost like her. Certainly you\u2019ve been told that Freddy was fat, very fat; they say she weighed more than 300 pounds. And black. And poor. Yes, there are photos; you can see her. She was gigantic. Although there is speculation even about that. The few people who talk about her always add a few more pounds. Let me tell you, there are many things that nobody knows for sure about Freddy. They say that her name was Fredesvinda Garc\u00eda Herrera. But some say it was Fredelina, and that her second surname was Vald\u00e9s. Some write that she was born in Matanzas, and others say it was Camag\u00fcey, and that she came to work as a domestic in Havana. That she was born either in \u201933 or \u201934\u2026. Nobody knows where her grave is in Puerto Rico, either. Because that\u2019s where she died, in 1961.<\/p>\n
Of course, you asked about her voice; I sometimes get distracted, it\u2019s my age. Are you familiar with \u201cThe man I love,\u201d that song by George Gershwin? Or Cole Porter\u2019s \u201cNight and day?\u201d Or \u201cNoche de ronda,\u201d by the maestro Agust\u00edn Lara? Well, you have to hear them sung by Freddy. It\u2019s true that the arrangement that was recorded was not the best. Her voice didn\u2019t need all that big band in the background. And the lyrics in Spanish are a little stiff. But that voice, oh what a voice.<\/p>\n
Look, it is not the clear voice of Ella Fitzgerald, or the resigned heartbreak of Billie Holiday, or the tranquil, sure voice of Etta James. It\u2019s all of them at the same time, in an outrageous, superhuman and divine mix, like her body. Freddy had a thunderclap in her throat. But not a clattering, ephemeral thunderclap; it was more like a dense river. Intense and serene. A delicate thunderclap that she surely used to try to take all the sadness out of her soul, and that she slowly let fall, soaking whoever heard her. You have to feel how that voice falls, drenching you with sweetness, pain, and nostalgia. What a tremendous contralto.<\/p>\n
Yes, she made a record. Only one, unfortunately. It was recorded in 1960, under the Jes\u00fas Goris label Puchito, as Noche y d\u00eda (Freddy con la orquesta de Humberto Su\u00e1rez). In another, I think more modern edition, it was called Freddy. La voz del sentimiento. And several more editions have come out. But no, no way. I, who heard her, who saw how she cried oceans with every verse and seemed to bleed to death and squeeze out the last drop of life from every song that came out of her throat \u2013of course by giving her own\u2013 can tell you that this record does not have even half of what Freddy could do. And notice that none of the composers whose songs she performs are easy to sing. Go ahead, just tell me who is bold enough to sing Agust\u00edn Lara, Piloto y Vera, Consuelo Vel\u00e1zquez, or Marta Vald\u00e9s. You have to know a lot for that\u2026<\/p>\n
They say that yes, afterward she became famous and even appeared in a book. That was because some friends of G. Ca\u00edn \u2013I think it was the drummer, Erib\u00f3; or C\u00f3dac, the photographer; or Silvestre, I can\u2019t remember now\u2013 took him to hear her sing, and she inspired him to write a novel. After that you could rightly call her The Star (La Estrella), like the song that Ela O\u2019Farrill composed for her.<\/p>\n
Of course, of course. She performed in cabarets. She appeared on television. With Benny Mor\u00e9 and Celia Cruz, no less; I think it was on a Partag\u00e1s show, if my memory doesn\u2019t fail me. And she worked in Venezuela, in Mexico, in the United States. Until she went to Puerto Rico\u2026 that\u2019s where she died, when she still had so much more to sing.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re leaving? Of course, I\u2019ve been talking your ear off\u2026 I hope that Freddy has become a star and shines in the eternal night, as a verse from O\u2019Farrill\u2019s song goes. In any case, Mr. Journalist, the next time it rains, listen and listen carefully. It just might be that one of those thunderclaps \u2013the ones that sound far off and last a long time\u2013 is due to Freddy. Who knows? Maybe up there, in some kind of heaven, her voice is still crying a bolero to console us in our sadness. Maybe, when I kick the bucket, I\u2019ll be able to accompany her again with one of my records, like we used to do in the Bar Celeste. And that\u2019s it for now, because I\u2019m getting all choked up. Go now, it\u2019s getting late. Bye-bye, Mr. Journalist. And come back whenever you want\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I didn\u2019t have to ask around much, they knew right away who she was. It\u2019s really a shame, but very few like her remain. That is why I came to this bar. The writers were right. Places that operate at night should never be seen in daylight. All the dust, all the sorrows recounted by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2444,"featured_media":7584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,53],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[33668],"class_list":["post-7590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magazine-articles","category-solar-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n