Son de la Loma

'Mamá, I want to know where the singers come from' — and the answer, of course, is the hill. Miguel Matamoros writes 'Son de la Loma' for the Trío...

'Mamá, I want to know where the singers come from' — and the answer, of course, is the hill. Miguel Matamoros writes 'Son de la Loma' for the Trío Matamoros, who cut it in the early 1930s, and its teasing question-and-answer coro became one of the first sones to travel off the island and define the whole genre for the world. Santiago de Cuba — la loma, the hill — is both the literal setting and a wink: the soneros come from up there, from the roots. Los Guaracheros de Oriente tighten it into two-voice guajiro harmony; later readings hand it to rumba and charanga. A signpost pointing back to where the son began.

Composer

Miguel Matamoros

Year

1932

Lineage

son