From All Music Guide: Group members: Ry Cooder; Omara Portuondo; Joachim Cooder; Julio Fernandez; Rubén González; Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez; Eliades Ochoa; Carlos González; Manuel "El Guajiro" Mirabal; Benito Suárez Magana; Julienne Oviedo Sánchez; Compay Segundo; Ibrahim Ferrer; Juan de Marcos González; Salvador Repilado Labrada; Manuel "Puntillita" Licea; Luis Barzaga; Lázaro Villa

Recording Info: Egrem Studios, Havana, Cuba; Ocean Way Studios, Los Angeles, CA

From All Music Guide: This album is named after a members-only club that was opened in Havana in pre-Castro times, a period of unbelievable musical activity in Cuba. While bandleader Desi Arnaz became a huge hit in the States, several equally talented musicians never saw success outside their native country, and have had nothing but their music to sustain them during the Castro reign. Ry Cooder went to Cuba to record a musical documentary of these performers. Many of the musicians on this album have been playing for more than a half century, and they sing and play with an obvious love for the material. Cooder could have recorded these songs without paying the musicians a cent; one can imagine them jumping up and grabbing for their instruments at the slightest opportunity, just to play. Most of the songs are a real treasure, traversing a lot of ground in Cuba's musical history. There's the opening tune, "Chan Chan," a composition by 89-year-old Compay Segundo, who was a bandleader in the '50s; the cover of t...

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