El Manisero
Don Azpiazú and His Havana Casino Orchestra · 1930 · released as a single · written by Moisés Simons
The first Cuban record to sell a million copies in the US: it started a craze for Cuban music that lasted twenty years.
- son
Why it matters
Cuban composer Moisés Simons wrote El Manisero (“The Peanut Vendor”), and Don Azpiazú's Havana Casino Orchestra recorded it in New York for Victor in May 1930, with Antonio Machín singing. It was a son-pregón: Cuban son built on a street vendor's cry.
It became the first million-selling record of Cuban music in the United States, and set off a “rumba craze” in the US and Europe that lasted through the 1940s. Americans called almost any Cuban music “rumba” back then, but what they were dancing to was mostly son, the music salsa grew out of.
The Library of Congress added it to the US National Recording Registry in 2005, as the first American recording of an authentic Latin dance style.
What to listen for
- A pregón, a street vendor's cry: the song is a peanut seller calling out his peanuts, and singer Antonio Machín sings it like a man working the street. Call-and-response vocals like these are still in every salsa song.
- Under the voice, the steady, unhurried pulse of Cuban son. It's slower than most salsa, so it's a good song to practice a relaxed basic step and feel the beat without rushing.
- It's a recording from 1930, so it sounds thinner and softer than a modern band: turn it up, and listen for how little the band needs to make you want to move.