Los Zafiros
To those whose lives they briefly touched, Los Zafiros (The Sapphires), including Miguel Canio, Ignacio Elejalde, Manuel Galbán, Eduardo 'El Chino' Hernández and Leoncio 'Kike' Morúa, are legends. The international backdrop to these young musicians' dreams was the Cuban Missile Crisis - Los Zafiros were molded in the time of the birth of teenage culture in revolutionary Cuba. While Presidents Kruschev and Kennedy played brinkmanship with Soviet warheads placed on soil just off America's coast and the world counted down to a nuclear holocaust, two youths from the tough, musical district of Cayo Hueso in old Havana, 'Kike' Morúa and 'Miguelito' Cancio, decided to form a vocal group. Their extraordinary sound - the twang of electric guitar pop, the vocal virtuosity of doo-wop and R&B, blended with a unique and imaginative rereading of bolero, calypso, bossa nov and the rhythmic heritage of Cuba, was a smash in Havana and beyond in the 60s and makes for incredible listening today.