(Jose Marti/Pete Seeger/Hector Angulo)
The original music for this song is said to have been written by Jose Fernandez Diaz in 1929 and used regularly in one of his radio programmes. It has also been claimed by some that the music came from peasant music of Cuba and the melody was just adapted by Fernandez although the Cuban Supreme Court has credited him as the composer. The original lyrics to this song were written by Fernandez too and were about a woman called Gauntanemo but the official lyrics are based on the first verse of a poem from Simple Versos Sencillos (Simple Verses) by Jose Marti and adapted by the Cuban composer Julian Orbon.
The music was later arranged and adapted by the Cuban guitarist/composer Hector Angulo and the folk-singer Pete Seeger and a lawsuit was issued on them by Orbon “for robbery of intellectual property”. The song has been performed and recorded by many artists, including Pete Seeger, and was a hit for The Sandpipers in 1967.
Joan Baez
(A&M 1516-S, 2634-S) (US 45)
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