Straight outta’ LA: Colin Hay, Cecilia Noel and San Miguel
A new California generation of the Buena Vista Social Club Patrick O’Heffernan (Los Angeles) It was a magic night. People standing elbow to elbow on the dance floor, people crammed 6 or 7 into a 5- person booth, people filling every chair, barstool and inch of floor space all singing the Beatles classic “When I’m 64” to Colin Hay of the Australian band Men at Work. Only they weren’t in Australia, they were at The Mint, the oldest rock venue in Los Angeles, at a birthday party thrown for Hay by his singer/songwriter/producer wife Cecilia Noël and their friend and protégé Cuban tresero and guitarist, San Miguel Perez. They were celebrating not only Hay’s birthday, but the birth of the San Miguel band, which looks to become one of the most successful bands emerging from the creative soup of LA’s sprawling Latin fusion music laboratory. San Miguel Perez is known as the next generation of the Buena Vista Social Club, the musical phenomenon brought to life in a 1997 recording made by Cuban musician Juan de [Read More]