I Left My Blues In Cuba
Ramon Goose is an English guitarist working in Cuban music. He took the blues to Santiago de Cuba, found The Compadres, and came back with a record.
The Compadres
The Compadres are two bands with one name, either side of the Atlantic, playing son, guajira and bolero with an electric blues guitar where the tres would normally sit.
In England it is a trio, led by Ramon Goose and Kieffer Santander. Kieffer plays percussion — Peruvian, based here, one of the leading players of Afro-Peruvian and Criollo rhythm in Europe, and the reason the band moves the way it does: cajón, congas, bongó and the quijada, a donkey’s jawbone played by rattling the teeth.
In Santiago de Cuba it is a five-piece, and that is the band on the record: Joaquín Solórzano on congas, who the band began with in 2023, Rudy Ramon on tres, Calderín on double bass and Ernesto on bongó. We cut the album at EGREM, the state studio that put most of what the world calls Cuban music onto tape.
Neither half is a tribute act. The blues went to Cuba, found the music already there, and came back sounding like this.
- BasedLondon and Havana
- Current releaseI Left My Blues In Cuba
- LabelZOHO Records, New York
- Live formatsTrio in England, quintet in Santiago de Cuba
The rest of it
The Music
The new album, the Almenares sessions and twenty years of back catalogue.
Go →Working In Cuba
EGREM Santiago, the players, and how a blues record ended up a Cuban one.
Go →The Gear
The Guyatone, the amps, and what actually made the sound on the record.
Go →Goose Effects
Three pedals of my own, built from the ground up. In manufacture now.
Go →Live
Where the band is playing, and how to book it.
Go →Gallery
Photographs from Santiago, Havana and the road.
Go →The Guitar Show
Guitar history, told properly. Fifty-seven thousand subscribers and counting.
Go →Ramon Goose
My own channel. The Compadres, the Cuban material, and everything before it.
Bookings
Trio or full band, festivals and clubs. I read my own email and I answer it.