The 64-year-old salsa star’s album will reinterpret some of the Fab Four’s classic songs in a CD to be released Tuesday.
By Arturo Arias-Polo
The music of the Beatles remains alive — and this week it will take on a new interpretation when Cuban salsa star Willy Chirino releases a tribute album covering the legendary quartet’s songs.
All You Need Is Love, Yellow Submarine, Drive My Car and Blackbird are also among the “difficult selections” Chirino made from the Beatle’s extensive catalog in between tours of the United States, Europe and Latin America over the past two years.“For years I have wanted to do a CD with the music of the Beatles because, ever since I played the drums in my teenage years, they have been an influence in my work,” Chirino said.
“I have always been a fervent fan of the Beatles repertoire,” he said. “In fact, my family and I cry every time we watch Love, the Cirque Du Soleil show with their music playing in Las Vegas. And when Paul McCartney performs in a concert in Miami we never miss it.”
My Beatles Heart (Eventus Music) will go on sale Tuesday at stores nationwide and online. The CD includes Because, Come Together, Across the Universe and other classics of the Liverpool band, all delivered salsa-style.
The singer recalled that, despite the lack of communication between Cubans in exile and those living in Cuba in the 1960s, he knew that the Beatles were banned on the Cuban radio, and that Cuban youths who combed their hair as the Beatles did were persecuted and accused of having “ideological problems.”
The pirated copies of their work that circulated on the island hand to hand, known as “plates,” kept young people up to date with the quartet’s music.
Today, Chirino said, “The irony of it is that they later built a statue of John Lennon [in Cuba] and not long ago they opened a bar in Havana called Yellow Submarine.”
Chirino, 64, never saw the Beatles perform live. Only many years later, long after the group broke up, he ran into George Harrison in New York.
“I was with Lissette [Chirino’s wife] in Bloomingdale’s children’s department when I suddenly look to my left and there was Harrison,” Chirino said. “Lissette approached him to say hello, and then they called me. He was very kind to us, but I was so tense that I didn’t even think of asking for his autograph.”
One thing Chirino is not nervous about is the criticism he might receive from Beatlemaniacs when they hear his Cubanized tribute album.
“I don’t think they will criticize me, but will rather do the opposite,” he said. “I am sure the connoisseurs of the Beatles’ music will enjoy this CD because it was done with a lot of respect.”
The singer/composer said that most of the themes retain the original tone and harmony; “only the flavor is changed.” On the other hand, the decision of recording them in English was never an issue.
“Songs sound better in their original language. Especially if they are universal,” he said. “And The Beatles songs are not an exception.”
Chirino is scheduled to film a music video for his version of Yellow Submarine at a downtown Miami club while he rehearses for a Sept. 10 concert with the CD’s themes at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.
