Search - Ruben Blades :: A Man and His Music: Poeta Del Pueblo

Truly the ULTIMATE Ruben Blades collection.

Justo Roteta | Los Angeles, California United States | 03/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 2-CD set is the most comprehensive collection of Ruben's Fania recordings issued to date. Of course, you get most of his big solo hits as well as some of his earlier ones with Ray Barretto, Willie Colon and even the Fania All Stars. The essay by Ernesto Lechner is also very informative and covers aspects of Ruben's entire career. Despite its being limited to Ruben's 1975-84 Fania recordings this package really deserves to be in your collection."

Great Fania collection with one major flaw

sergiobklyn | 03/21/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As written before, this is a great collection of Rubén's Fania work with excellent liner notes. One might argue an omission of a song here and there, but overall it covers a lot. The tracks are arranged in chronological order and the artwork includes album pictures, concert photos, and a hand-written page of the Pedro Navaja chart. The mastering made Rubén's Fania music sound the best I've heard so far, with a balance of the lows and highs and an increased volume that matches today's music.



The tracks from Maestra Vida ("Manuela", "El nacimiento de Ramiro", and "Maestra vida") have part of their intro text and music taken out. It seems understandable to edit those tracks because the songs might sound weird out of context. What seems unforgivable is the fact that they faded the ending of the song "Maestra vida" leaving out a minute and a half portion that includes a climactic mambo section. I understand that CD 2 is almost 80 minutes long, but they could have picked a shorter song from one of the "filler" LP's and left "Maestra vida" in its full length.



I would have given this double CD 5 stars, but given the importance of the Maestra Vida album, I gave it 4.

"

Poeta Del Pueblo - Ruben Blades

Magdalena Santiago | NJ USA | 02/01/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I rediscovered this artist listening to Pandora - I am so glad I did. I can't believe I missed this for quite a few years - Ruben Blades is #1 in my book."