Alex Cuba has always used music as his own personal elixir. The benefits he receives from performing, audiences also receive. It's the main reason he wanted to call his latest album Healer.
Most musicians pick a top song from a new package of tunes and that's the name of the whole disc, but for Cuba, he was making a much larger personal statement.
"I actually can't believe I've never called an album Healer before. Music has always meant so much to me, it is my healer, I have always used it like a medicine for everything that comes to you from life," said the Smithers-based but Cuban-born pop star.
Each of his previous albums has attained new levels of success. His first one, a duo project with his brother Adonis Puentes, won a Juno Award. After that came Humo De Tabaco, Agua Del Pozo, the eponymous Alex Cuba, then Ruido En El Sistema (Static In The System). Each one raised his own production and composition standards, and reached bigger audiences than the last. That was evidenced by his wins of the Latin Grammy Award (three nominations, two wins, since 2010) and then a nomination for the main Grammy Award itself, the most prestigious music trophy in the world.
It makes one wonder how the new album will do, considering it is even better, sonically speaking, than the last one. It involves some of the many big names he has earned the friendship of over the years. And his grasp of the Western Anglo mentality also shows up on Healer like never before, without shedding his definitive Cuban sound.
He applauds North American audiences for embracing the Cuban music scene as warmly as they have, but he warns people to look beyond the forefront act that broke those doors open, the Buena Vista Social Club. That group was great, he said, but it only reflects a particular snapshot in Cuban music's time.
"I went to see them when they performed in Vancouver, and I admit, I was very emotional to watch them," he said. But this band of elder statesmen has been built upon by many modern artists that drive the Cuban music scene these days. Although he doesn't consider himself one of those, directly, he does hope fans of his might do some looking into Cuba's rich new music industry.
He describes himself, though, as a Cuban who is too influenced by Canadian and American music to be looked upon as a pure example of his home country. Healer has tracks that retain the Cuban vibe, no doubt, but show flashes of alternative folk, mainstream pop, and even some tints of country.
His duets, as well, give off an ever more confident grasp of his adopted country's influences. One of Healer's tracks is a brotherly tune with consummate Canadian niceguy David Myles, and another is a lip-smacking good song with jazzy Alejandra Ribera in a vocal tango on which he sings in English (a rarity for him).
"It is difficult, to try to make two different languages into one sound, but it has come together really nicely, and I think it will be seen as something fresh from me," he said.
He once again works a song with Ron Sexsmith, with whom he duetted three albums ago to great effect. There's also a swaggery danceable duet with Kuba Oms (frontman for electronica band Velvet) and with American buzz-rocker Anya Marina.
As a performer, he has been able to meet many of the world's top-shelf musicians and work with them, but he has also made inroads as a composer. Seventy per cent of Healer's songs were co-written with others who have been lining up to work with him.
"About twice or three times a year I take a trip to major centres in the U.S. to write songs with other musicians (he has a Universal Music songwriting deal to invent material for use by other artists) so I put forward my melodies in these sessions and I started realizing these ones on Healer were actually songs for me," he said. "Without realizing that I was writing for myself, I came up with a whole album. That's how it all came together. Sometimes you just need to share, get inspiration from other places in the world."
He certainly found inspiration in Prince George. His headliner spot on the Canada Winter Games music festival mainstage was a game-changer for him and perhaps for a national audience of new fans. Cuba's concert was a wildcard in the mix of Alan Doyle and Tim Hicks and Dear Rouge , names that you hear frequently on the radio and come up in water cooler conversation. Cuba has no radio hit, does not sing in English, comes from Smithers, not Montreal or Vancouver, and was performing midweek on the first week of the Games extravaganza. It could have been the one night most fans decided to take a breather from standing outside in the winter but it was a hit before a host of fans jammed into a packed Canada Games Plaza.
He walked off stage that night and within 48 hours had booked a concert at Art Space because he couldn't wait to get back to this city for more of this exchange he has going on.
Tickets are on sale now at Books and Company for that April 1 concert. Tickets were selling so fast there was talk of adding a second concert, so fans should move fast to get in the door.
