A little over a year ago, the Spanish singer-songwriter Pedro Grimaldi fulfilled an old dream when, by chance, he met the Cuban guitarist and music producer Julio Montoro. This meeting crystallized in songs and poems from both sides of the Atlantic to, shortly after, materialize in an album that would unite them on their path.
Pedro, a native of Jerez, is a connoisseur of our music, and is aligned with the Nueva Trova and the author’s song, which has been exalted in almost the entire planet by the most famous cultists of Cuba and Spain. Thus, with overflowing poetry and perfect musical synergy, their songs head towards an oasis of intimacy and find refuge not only in similar amphorae, but also in direct allusions to the sound, and even in that fusion between the Hispanic and the insular, bordering on the Moorish, the African, the miscegenation resulting from more than 500 years of round-trip encounters.
This production would not have been possible without the craftsmanship of Montoro who, with a solid academic background, as well as many years in the vicissitudes that come with endless recording sessions and concerts, managed to capture the idea that all these songs were woven together.
This album, titled Versos en la Piel, features renowned artists such as Bárbara Llanes, Juan Kemell, Yhosvani Betancourt, and the Spanish Javier Ruibal, among others. They all gave the phonogram a musical chromaticism that achieved clear stylistic differences in each interpretation.
In each of the 14 songs, various genres are intermixed, in addition to intentional references proposed by Montoro, as part of the creative freedom inherent to a demanding music producer, a task that he assumes with complete ease. The creative ductility of Grimaldi is also palpable, who, with his peculiar baritone timbre, offers us several sonorous views, since he was able to achieve a perfect balance between his initial proposal and the result obtained with Montoro, the result of respect and understanding. between the two artists. Grimaldi sings of love, of friendship, of the saltpeter of Havana’s Malecón, seasoned by so many centuries of common stories between both cultures. And he emerges successfully from the musical challenge.
Versos en la skin was nominated for Cubadisco 2024 in the International Co-production category, and had its presentation in the theater room of the National Museum of Fine Arts, where all the themes were put up for consideration by the Cuban public, which further enriches this unique confluence between a Jerez native and a Cuban.
