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Radio Habana Cuba-Cadena Azul (lit. "Radio Havana Cuba-Blue Network") was a Cuban radio network operating in various forms from 1939 until 1954. It was a heated rival of radio network CMQ.
RHC was created in 1939 by Felix O'Shea, founder of Havana's CMK radio station, with stations in Jovellanos, Matanzas and Victoria de Las Tunas; the network was then sold to Cristóbal Díaz González. Cadena Azul began in 1939. In 1940, Amado Trinidad Velazco became the owner and various Cuban stations merged with CMHI, among which were CMCF and CMKO thus forming Radio Habana Cuba, with its offices at Prado #54, corner of Capdevila Street.[ citation needed ] Díaz González was a partner with the Cuban telephone company, and with his connections the network had access to a telephone line repeater that could pass on the signals across the island. [1]
The goals of RHC Cadena Azul were to:
To achieve this Trinidad raised the artists' and technicians' salaries. RHC Cadena Azul employed 40 singers, 34 actors, 18 announcers, 20 writers, 10 composers and 10 bands.
Some famous musicians of RHC Cadena Azul were Iris Burguet, Manolo Álvarez Mera, René Cabell, Vicentico Valdés, Miguelito Valdés, Joseíto Fernández and Barbarito Diez; actors like Rita Montaner, Jesús Alvariño, Rolando Ochoa, Leopoldo Fernández Salgado, Aníbal de Mar, Otto Sirgo and Rosendo Rosell.
Singer and composer Sindo Garay, was one of the network's most popular artists, with 116 songs. Mexican artists who worked at the studios between 1942-1946 included Jorge Negrete, Tito Guizar and Pedro Vargas, and Argentine entertainer Libertad Lamarque.
In 1952, Trinidad sold the network to Bed Marving of the U.S., who changed its name to Cadena Azul de Cuba.
On March 1, 1954, Cadena Azul de Cuba was closed replaced by the Circuito Nacional Cubano.
Havana is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. The city has a population of 2.3 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of 728.26 km2 (281.18 sq mi)for the Capital City side and 8,475.57 km² for the Metropolitan zone – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the Second largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region.
Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez, better known as Benny Moré, was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known variously as El Bárbaro del Ritmo and El Sonero Mayor. Moré was a master of the soneo – the art of vocal improvisation in son cubano – and many of his tunes developed this way. He often took part in controversias with other singers like Cheo Marquetti and Joseíto Fernández. Apart from son cubano, Moré was a popular singer of guarachas, cha cha cha, mambo, son montuno, and boleros.
Radio Havana Cuba is the official government-run international broadcasting station of Cuba. It can be heard in many parts of the world including the United States on shortwave frequencies. Radio Havana, along with Radio Rebelde, Cubavision Television and other Cuban radio and television broadcasts to North, Central and South America via free-to-air programming from the Hispasat 30W-6 satellite over the Atlantic Ocean and via Internet streaming.
La Sonora Matancera is a Cuban band that played Latin American urban popular dance music. Founded in 1924 and led for more than five decades by guitarist, vocalist, composer, and producer Rogelio Martínez, musicologists consider it an icon of this type of music. Notable singers to have sung and recorded with the band include Bienvenido Granda, Daniel Santos, Myrta Silva, Miguelito Valdés, Leo Marini, Celia Cruz, Nelson Pinedo, Vicentico Valdés, Estanislao "Laíto" Sureda, Alberto Beltrán, Carlos Argentino, and Celio González.
Cuba was the first Latin American country to begin television testing in December 1946 when station CM-21P conducted an experimental multi-point live broadcast. The first regular commercial broadcasting began in October 1950 by the small radio station Union Radio, soon followed by other stations. The broadcasts featured sport, soap operas, news, cooking shows, and comedy. Censorship was imposed following the 1952 coup by Fulgencio Batista, and again by the government of the Cuban revolution after their victory in 1959.
Trova is a style of Cuban popular music originating in the 19th century. Trova was created by itinerant musicians known as trovadores who travelled around Cuba's Oriente province, especially Santiago de Cuba, and earned their living by singing and playing the guitar. According to nueva trova musician Noel Nicola, Cuban trovadors sang original songs or songs written by contemporaries, accompanied themselves on guitar, and aimed to feature music that had a poetic sensibility. This definition fits best the singers of boleros, and less well the Afrocubans singing funky sones or even guaguancós and abakuá. It rules out, perhaps unfairly, singers who accompanied themselves on the piano.
Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda, known as Rita Montaner, was a Cuban singer, pianist and actress. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette, and was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on numerous occasions. She was one of Cuba's most popular artists between the late 1920s and 1950s, renowned as Rita de Cuba. Though classically trained as a soprano for zarzuelas, her mark was made as a singer of Afro-Cuban salon songs including "The Peanut Vendor" and "Siboney".
Rodrigo Prats was a Cuban composer, arranger, violinist, pianist and orchestral director.
Manuel Fernández Urquiza, more commonly known as Manolo Urquiza, was a Cuban-born media personality whose career spanned over three decades. He developed his career as a radio announcer, public relations officer and television presenter, both in his native Cuba and in Puerto Rico, where he became a motion picture presenter on Puerto Rican television.
La Tremenda Corte was a radio comedy show produced from the Radiocentro CMQ Building in Havana, Cuba. The scripts were written by Cástor Vispo, a Spaniard who became a Cuban citizen. The show was aired nonstop from 1942 to 1961. Later, the format of the show was adapted for a TV sitcom in Monterrey, Mexico, however, only three and a half seasons were produced from 1966 to 1969.
CMQ was a Cuban radio and television station located in Havana, Cuba, reaching an audience in the 1940s and 1950s, attracting viewers and listeners with a program that ranged from music and news dissemination. It later expanded into radio and television networks. As a radio network it was a heated competitor of the RHC-Cadena Azul network.
Paseo del Prado is a street and promenade in Havana, Cuba, near the location of the old city wall, and the division between Centro Habana and Old Havana. Technically, the Paseo del Prado includes the entire length of Paseo Martí approximately from the Malecon to Calle Máximo Gómez, the Fuente de la India fountain. The promenade has had several names; it was renamed Paseo de Martí in 1898 with the island's independence from Spain. Despite the historic references, the people of Havana simply call it "El Prado".
Félix Benjamín Caignet Salomón, known as Félix B. Caignet, was a Cuban radio writer, broadcaster, poet, novelist, journalist, theater critic, singer and musical composer. He is known as a pioneer of radio broadcasting in Cuba, and as one of the creators of Latin American soap operas.
Julio Gutiérrez was a Cuban music director, pianist, composer and arranger. He was one of the main figures in the music scene of Havana in the 1940s and 1950s, and a pioneer of the descarga. As a songwriter, he is remembered for his 1944 bolero "Inolvidable", which has been performed by numerous artists.
Adolfo Guzmán was a Cuban pianist, music director, arranger and composer. During his 40-year-long career he directed several important Cuban ensembles, including Orquesta Riverside and Los Modernistas, as well as prominent radio and cabaret orchestras.
Luis Martínez Griñán, better known as Lilí Martínez, was a Cuban pianist, arranger and composer specializing in the son montuno style. He played in the Conjunto de Arsenio Rodríguez and Conjunto Chappottín. Together with Rubén González and Peruchín, he is said to have "forged the style of modem Cuban piano playing in the 1940s".
Mercedes Valdés Granit, better known as Merceditas Valdés, was a Cuban singer who specialized in Afro-Cuban traditional music. Under the aegis of ethnomusicologists Fernando Ortiz and Obdulio Morales, Valdés helped popularize Afro-Cuban music throughout Latin America. In 1949, she became one of the first female Santería singers to be recorded. Her debut album was released at the start of the 1960s, when the Cuban government nationalized the record industry. She then went on hiatus before making a comeback in the 1980s with a series of albums entitled Aché, in collaboration with artists such as Frank Emilio Flynn and rumba ensemble Yoruba Andabo. She also appeared in Jane Bunnett's Spirits of Havana and continued performing until her death in 1996.
Obdulio Morales Ríos was a Cuban pianist, conductor, composer and ethnomusicologist, an important figure in the late afrocubanismo movement. He championed Afro-Cuban music traditions and sponsored artists such as Merceditas Valdés.
Raimunda Paula Peña Álvarez, better known as Paulina Álvarez, was a renowned Cuban singer of danzonetes. She became the leading exponent of the genre during the 1930s, being nicknamed La Emperatriz del Danzonete. Her greatest hit was the song "Rompiendo la rutina", the first danzonete, composed by Aniceto Díaz in 1929. In 1960 she recorded her only LP record.
The Radiocentro CMQ Building complex is a former radio and television production facility and office building at the intersection of Calle L and La Rampa in El Vedado, Cuba. It was modeled after Raymond Hood's 1933 Rockefeller Center in New York City. With 1,650 seats, the theater first opened on December 23, 1947, under the name Teatro Warner Radiocentro, it was owned by brothers Goar and Abel Mestre. Today the building serves as the headquarters of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT).
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