Benny More

Pare... Que Llego El Barbaro + 2 Bonus Tracks! Benny More

Beny Moré was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known as "El Bárbaro del Ritmo" and "El Sonero Mayor." Moré was a master of most Cuban popular genres, such as the bolero, son montuno, mambo, and guaracha.

Bartolomé (Beny) Maximiliano Moré was born on August 24, 1919, in the district of Pueblo Nuevo in Santa Isabel de Las Lajas, Cienfuegos province. He was from a humble family and was the oldest of 18 children. Before becoming a famous musician, he worked as a carter, a docker, a shoeshine boy and a boxer, but the rhythm had been flowing through his veins since childhood. As a child, Moré learned to play the guitar, making his first instrument at age six, according to his mother, out of a board and a ball of string. In 1936, at age 17, he left Las Lajas for Havana, where he lived by selling bruised and damaged fruit and vegetables and medicinal herbs. Six months later he returned to Las Lajas and went to cut cane for a season with his brother Teodoro. With the money he earned and Teodoro's savings, he bought his first guitar in Morón. He also sang, as he would later explain: "I started to sing professionally when I was 13, although when I was much younger I shouted at home... I'm going to die without doing anything else in my life but sing".