Quotes By Ruben Blades
And, he'd seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.
Ruben Blades
In those days the big U.S. labels didn't have any particular interest in the Latin market.
Ruben Blades
I think in New York we had respect and we would pretty much fill up the places where we went, but I never got the sense that we really were Number 1 here in New York among the Latin crowds.
Ruben Blades
So that I saw music as a way of documenting realities from the urban cities of Latin America.
Ruben Blades
I was born in Panama, the Republic of Panama, on July 16, 1948 in Panama City, in an area called San Felipe.
Ruben Blades
So I went to Miami in '74 with my family and while I was there it became obvious that we needed money and we needed to do something, because my family, we left without anything really, and we didn't have any money to begin with.
Ruben Blades
Every band had their own distinctive sound, but it was pretty much dancing music and rhythmic music with a tremendous emphasis on copying the Cuban models.
Ruben Blades
I didn't do drugs, I never did do drugs. Never. I don't have any story of drugs, you know, to speak of. Never did drugs, never was interested in drugs and then I wasn't interested in the people around the drugs.
Ruben Blades
I was the first person to come into New York with a Latin American point of view which was also very much influenced by political happenings in Latin America.
Ruben Blades
It was very interesting, and we went to Germany and we toured Germany like we were a German band in 1985.
Ruben Blades
It's almost as if people think that in Latin America we're not hip to what's happening here.
Ruben Blades
The grandmother, the mother, the worker, the student, the intellectual, the professional, the unemployed, everybody identified with the songs because they were descriptions of life in the city.
Ruben Blades
What is interesting in this is the exchange of music that occurred between New Orleans and Cuba, I mean, they had ferries that would go from one port to another.
Ruben Blades
So that when I came to New York again, it was, I'm not too sure right now, but it was '74 or '75. I went to Miami in '74 and then I came to New York, I think, at the end of '74.
Ruben Blades