"Hasta Siempre, Comandante," ("Until Forever, Commander" in English) or simply "Hasta Siempre," is a 1965 song by Cuban composer Carlos Puebla. The song's lyrics are a reply to revolutionary Che Guevara's farewell letter when he left Cuba, in order to foster revolution in the Congo and later Bolivia, where he was captured and killed.
The lyrics recount key moments of the Cuban Revolution, describing Che Guevara and his role as a revolutionary commander. The song became iconic after Guevara's death, and many left-leaning artists did their own cover versions of the song afterwards. The title is a part of Guevara's well known saying "¡Hasta la victoria siempre!" ("Until victory, always!").
Like many of the songs of the author and in line with the tradition of the Cuban and Caribbean music, the song consists of a refrain plus a series of five verses (quatrain), rhyming ABBA, with each line written in octosyllabic verse.
The song has been covered numerous times, there are more than 200 versions of this song. The song has also been covered by Compay Segundo, Soledad Bravo, Óscar Chávez, Nathalie Cardone, Robert Wyatt, Nomadi, Inés Rivero, Silvio Rodríguez, Ángel Parra, Celso Piña, Veronica Rapella (whose performance is attributed to Joan Baez by a common mistake), Rolando Alarcón, Los Olimareños, Maria Farantouri, Jan Garbarek, Wolf Biermann, Boikot, Los Calchakis (commonly wrongly attributed to Buena Vista Social Club), George Dalaras, Apurimac, Giovanni Mirabassi and Al Di Meola, Ahmet Koç, Mohsen Namjoo, Enrique Bunbury, Verasy, Interitus Dei among others. Although Victor Jara never sang this song, many attribute the Carlos Puebla version to him by mistake.
So for today we have the Norwegian jazz saxophonist Jan Garbarek's version, along with Rainer Bruninhaus (piano), Eberhard Weber (basse), Marilyn Mazur (percussions), the tune was released on his "Witchi-Tai-To" from 1974. The clip is from Nancy Jazz Pulsations 2004, enjoy!
"Hero And Heroine" is a song by English band STRAWBS featured on their 1974 album of the same name. It is written by Dave Cousins and has obvious drug allusions, the main reason it didn't get much airplay on BBC radio. The song is in a similar vein to an earlier track "Witchwood" but with rather more obvious allegory.
Dave Cousins originally demonstrated the song to the band on banjo and the guitar picking under the verses does indeed retain a bluegrass feel. Keyboardist John Hawken and guitarist Dave Lambert added mellotron and guitar power chords between the verses which gives the whole song a more epic bearing.
STRAWBS are an English rock band founded in 1964 as the Strawberry Hill Boys. The band started out as a bluegrass group, but eventually moved on to other styles such as folk rock, progressive rock, and (briefly) glam rock.
They are best known for their hit "Part of the Union", which reached number two in the UK Singles Chart in February 1973, as well as for "Lay Down", a popular progressive rock hit from the same LP. The STRAWBS also toured with SUPERTRAMP in their "Crime of the Century" tour, doing their own "Hero and Heroine" tour, which drew musical similarities and themes.
Hero And Heroine - Live in Tokyo 1975 with band members: Dave Cousins - vocals, guitar, Dave Lambert - vocals, guitar, John Hawken - keyboards, Chas Cronk - bass, vocals, Rod Coombes - drums
Enjoy today's classic where the video is a great one, filmed Live in Gettysburg: Rites of Spring Festival 2016. The video is a medley featuring following songs: Autumn: (I) Heroine's Theme / (Ii) Deep Summer's Sleep / (Iii) The Winter Long, Hero And Heroine, Angst & Lay a Little Light On Me / Hero's Theme / Round And Round (Reprise) / Shine On Silver Sun (Reprise). Band members: Dave Cousins / vocals, electric & acoustic guitars - Dave Lambert / lead guitar, vocals - Dave Bainbridge / keyboards / programming - Chas Cronk / bass, bass pedals, 12-string guitar, vocals - Tony Fernandez / drums, percussion.
