Para la Espera

A folk superstar in Latin America, Cuban singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez I embodies a fast-ageing fantasy of left-leaning pan-continental unity spearheaded by white guys in khaki and their indigenous footsoldiers. Para la Espera means something like ‘Still Waiting.’ Aren’t we all? His 80s anthems, ‘Canción del Elegido’, ‘Ojalá’ and ‘La Maza’, are campfire favourites and he enjoys a status south of the Río Grande comparable with Bob Dylan’s north of the border. Now aged 73, his voice has retained some of its fruity textures and his earnest nueva trova schtick remains pretty unchanged: crisp vocals, poetastery lyrics, simple chord sequences on acoustic guitar, mellifluously melancholic picking.

There aren’t any crowd-rousers here, and the lyrics are winsome and wise rather than overtly political. But Silvio, as fans know him, was always oblique. He can, though, command attention with scant resources and is engagingly soulful on songs like opener ‘La Adivinanza’ and ‘Noche Sin Fin y Mar’. He rarely deviates from the balladeering script; ‘Conteo Atrás’ has a half-hearted blues quality as he sings about missing a train in Cuba is magic realism. What’s lacking now was always lacking: a direct address to Cuba’s leaders. In fact, even the US gets off lightly. The trova is no longer nueva, but rather nostálgica and polite.