In "78 Pueblos Borincanos" (1979), Ramito is showcased alongside the popular Trío Vegabajeño, whose boleros have been a staple of Puerto Rican music since the 1940s. The Trío sings with Ramito in five of the ten songs, three of which are worth highlighting. In “78 pueblos borincanos,” a seis de andino, Ramito comments on the Island’s beautiful dawn asking God to bless his country, while naming the seventy-eight municipalities that make up Puerto Rico; an ingenious and impressive task considering that he has to follow the strict rhyme scheme of the décima! In “Boricua hasta el hueso,” an aguinaldo orocoveño, he expresses his pride in being Puerto Rican “to the bone” just “like the coquí,” Puerto Rico’s national frog, and the cucubano, a native luminous click beetle. “Para recordar a Ladí,” a moving seis de monte bello, for its part, is a homage to Ladislao “Ladí” Martínez, a formidable cuatro player and composer, who furthermore, had been instrumental in Ramito’s rise: his group Industrias Nativas having recorded with him in 1939. A song of sorrow and gratitude in the light of Ladí’s recent passing, Ramito sings that now Ladí is “doing music in heaven” with other singers and composers.

In addition to the Trío Vegabajeño, the album also features the trovador Vitín Morales, one of Ramito’s eighteen children. Together they sing “Mano a mano,” in the seis de controversia style. Here, Ramito and his son alternate décimas arguing over who is a better trovador. Vitín stresses that, when it comes to his achievements, he has gone “two steps higher” than Ramito. Exhibiting a keen sense of humor, he adds that like Homer, Ramito doesn’t see the path well anymore. “I am the goldfinch” he tells his father, and “you were the nightingale.” Ramito, somewhat conciliatory, reminds Vitín that he contributed to his skills as a trovador, and that it is ok for the world to benefit from a “new conqueror.” He pushes back against his son, though, by wittingly stating that, since he is not yet dead, he is still a nightingale. Today, this jíbaro tradition of singing in “controversy” is still alive and well, and it can also be appreciated in reggaeton’s tiraera, where rappers battle against one another. Not surprisingly, not too long ago, a local radio station in Puerto Rico had trovadores and rappers “fight” with one another in what became known as “trovatón,” a mix of trova and reggaeton (1).

Another contributor to this album is the singer and composer Irma Rodríguez Rivera, the Jíbara de Salinas (Salinas being a southern town in Puerto Rico), who Ramito had married a year before. Like Ramito, Irma had spent a lifetime singing jíbaro music and boleros, and performing throughout Latin America and the United States; she even sang at Madison Square Garden and Carnegie Hall (2). Here she accompanies Ramito in “Cadenas del 1800,” a song inspired in jíbaro singing of the late eighteenth century (3) that has also been recorded by Puerto Rican nueva cancion band Moliendo Vidrio (1978) (4), and diva Lucecita Benítez in 1983 (5).

Regarding Ramito’s songs where invited guests are not featured, “Memorias de Chuíto,” and “La mujer de mi tierra” are worth mentioning. The former, a seis milonga (in its minor key iteration) which as the term “milonga” implies evokes the Argentinean musical genre, is a homage to trovador Jesús Sánchez Erazo “Chuíto el de Bayamón,” whom Ramito had met around 1940. (It should be noted that, although this song is classified as a seis milonga in the album, the introductory chromatic melody played by the cuatro is rather characteristic of the seis milonguero) (6). Like Ladí, he had passed shortly before Ramito’s recording. The pie forzao—the final line of each décima—quite appropriately is the octosyllabic “Chuíto el de Bayamón.” “La mujer de mi tierra,” for its part, is an aguinaldo gurabeño, which can be described as an aguinaldo orocoveño but in a major key (contrast it, for example, with “Boricua hasta el hueso”). It is a celebration of the beauty of Puerto Rican women.

The album closes with the funny “Por causa del ron,” an aguinaldo cagüeño with a harmony that is slightly different from that of the typical aguinaldo cagueño to which Puerto Ricans are accustomed. (Contrast it, for instance, with “El último adiós a mi madre” in Ramito El Cantor de la Montaña Volume 2). Here Ramito sings about how, because he drank too much rum, he ended up dancing with a woman who looked like the mare of Godfather Mon, and Doña Ramona, who looked like a mule. It was also “because of rum,” the pie forzao and title of this aguinaldo, that Ramito ended up getting into a fist fight.

Throughout the album, the listener can also enjoy the unique, strong and deep-sounding cuatro playing of Nieves Quintero whose arpeggios, scales and solos are a major highlight of the album.

(1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMtkfZUC6T0
(2) For more on Irma go to: lajibaradesalinas.blogspot.com/2010/08/la-jibara-de-salinas.html.
(3) prpop.org/biografias/flor-morales-ramos-ramito/
(4) www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpjWLkWUTCQ
(5) www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBzEmxjbtwc
(6) For more on how Argentinian and Puerto Rican folk musics relate see Anthony L. Sánchez Cruz’s El Jíbaro y El Gaucho Unidos En Música y Canción (2018)

-Dr. Mario R. Cancel-Bigay