music business , if you ’ re not growing your brand , you ’ re dying . Still , Cuba insists there has been no pressure to make the transition to English-only material .
“ No , not yet . I ’ m waiting for the right moment to do it , which might never come ,” he says . “ I don ’ t know ; it might come tomorrow , but I gotta feel it , and that hasn ’ t happened yet .”
In fact , the decision to stick to Spanish might be helping more than hurting . He and his wife manage his career and have laid out a very specific plan that focuses on slowly growing a dedicated fan base . They carefully select his venues with the idea that a sold-out club is better than a half-full arena . Holding off on switching to English is an extension of that mindset . He courts CBC and college radio rather than mainstream stations due to the idea that it ’ s better to have thousands of long-term fans that will stick with him through experiments than millions who will forget about him after a single misstep .
“ That is the most discouraging thing for me because you get one shot , and if you fail at it , then my career is out the window ,” he explains . “ We ’ ve chosen to go slow , to develop naturally .”
Still , any working musician knows that getting those thousands of dedicated fans is a huge challenge in itself . At the end of the day , how are all these Canadians , hundreds of miles away from Havana , somehow connecting to these lyrics they can ’ t sort through without extensive use of Google Translate ? Two words : “ the music .”
“ The music allows the magic to happen ,” he says . “ People feel the whole universe through music . Most of my music is positive so people can feel the vibrations . I have a number of fans who listen to the music and they call me or text me and say , ‘ Your music is healing me , man ,’ and they don ’ t understand what the hell I ’ m talking about . It ’ s the magic in the chords .”
Speaking of chords , Healer is also a musical departure for Cuba . The horn-heavy arrangements of past albums have been cast aside for a more stripped-down , less cluttered sound , somewhat reminiscent of the music his father was known for . Puentes the senior was part of a movement in Cuba called “ filin ,” which often features a single blues-influenced guitarist accompanying a singer . On Healer , Cuba doesn ’ t pare things down quite that far , as much of the album also has drums and bass , but there was a very conscious desire to have the songs speak for themselves , with fewer bells and whistles to get in the way of a voice that Cuba himself describes as “ soulful .”
“ I have to say , the album has surpassed my expectations , because the fact I was taking the horns away from it as a musical decision somehow left in my mind the connotation that it was a little bit of a lower-scale album ,” he candidly says .
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