The Most Famous

MUSICIANS from Cuba

This page contains a list of the greatest Cuban Musicians. The pantheon dataset contains 3,175 Musicians, 13 of which were born in Cuba. This makes Cuba the birth place of the 27th most number of Musicians behind Argentina, and Denmark.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Cuban Musicians of all time. This list of famous Cuban Musicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Cuban Musicians.

1. Compay Segundo (1907 - 2003)

With an HPI of 63.50, Compay Segundo is the most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 37 different languages on wikipedia.

Máximo Francisco Repilado Muñoz Telles (18 November 1907 – 13 July 2003), known professionally as "Compay Segundo", was a Cuban trova guitarist, singer and composer.

2. Carlos Puebla (1917 - 1989)

With an HPI of 55.69, Carlos Puebla is the 2nd most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Carlos Manuel Puebla (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkaɾlos ˈpweβla]; 11 September 1917 – 12 July 1989) was a Cuban singer, guitarist and composer. He was a member of the Trova movement, who specialized in boleros and patriotic songs.

3. Bebo Valdés (1918 - 2013)

With an HPI of 55.51, Bebo Valdés is the 3rd most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 27 different languages.

Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro (October 9, 1918 – March 22, 2013), better known as Bebo Valdés, was a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger. He was a central figure in the golden age of Cuban music, especially due to his big band arrangements and compositions of mambo, chachachá and batanga, a genre he created in 1952. He was the director of the Radio Mil Diez house band and the Tropicana Club orchestra, before forming his own big band, Orquesta Sabor de Cuba, in 1957. However, after the end of the Cuban Revolution, in 1960, Bebo left his family behind and went into exile in Mexico before settling in Sweden, where he remarried. His musical hiatus lasted until 1994, when a collaboration with Paquito D'Rivera brought him back into the music business. By the time of his death in 2013, he had recorded several new albums, earning multiple Grammy Awards. His son Chucho Valdés is also a successful pianist and bandleader.

4. Rubén González (1919 - 2003)

With an HPI of 54.79, Rubén González is the 4th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Rubén González Fontanills (26 May 1919 – 8 December 2003) was a Cuban pianist. Together with Lilí Martínez and Peruchín he is said to have "forged the style of modern Cuban piano playing in the 1940s". Between the 1940s and his retirement in the 1980s, he played with Cuba's most successful acts, including Paulina Álvarez, Arsenio Rodríguez, Orquesta América del 55, Orquesta Riverside and Enrique Jorrín. In the 1990s, he came out of retirement to play in the revival ensembles Afro-Cuban All Stars and Buena Vista Social Club, also recording solo material and performing live until 2002.

5. Chucho Valdés (b. 1941)

With an HPI of 53.25, Chucho Valdés is the 5th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Dionisio Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, better known as Chucho (born October 9, 1941), is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger whose career spans over 50 years. An original member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, in 1973 he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands. Both his father, Bebo Valdés, and his son, Chuchito, are pianists as well. As a solo artist, he has won seven Grammy Awards and four Latin Grammy Awards.

6. Arturo Sandoval (b. 1949)

With an HPI of 52.15, Arturo Sandoval is the 6th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Arturo Sandoval (born November 6, 1949) is a Cuban-American jazz trumpeter, pianist, timbalero, and composer. While living in his native Cuba, Sandoval was influenced by jazz musicians Charlie Parker, Clifford Brown, and Dizzy Gillespie. In 1977 he met Gillespie, who became his friend and mentor and helped him defect from Cuba while on tour with the United Nations Orchestra. Sandoval became an American naturalized citizen in 1998. His life was the subject of the film For Love or Country: The Arturo Sandoval Story (2000) starring Andy García. Sandoval has won 10 Grammy Awards, Billboard Awards and one Emmy Award. He performed at the White House and at the Super Bowl (1995)

7. Jorge Bolet (1914 - 1990)

With an HPI of 52.13, Jorge Bolet is the 7th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

Jorge Bolet (November 15, 1914 – October 16, 1990) was a Cuban-born American concert pianist, conductor and teacher. Among his teachers were Leopold Godowsky, and Moriz Rosenthal – the latter a renowned pupil of Franz Liszt.

8. Eliades Ochoa (b. 1946)

With an HPI of 51.67, Eliades Ochoa is the 8th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Eliades Ochoa Bustamante (born 22 June 1946) is a Cuban guitarist and singer from Loma de la Avispa, Songo La Maya in the east of the country near Santiago de Cuba. He began playing the guitar when he was six and in 1978 he was invited to join Cuarteto Patria, a group founded in 1939, as its leader. Although he looks like a guajiro, and he still wears his trademark cowboy hat, his roots are in the son, and he only agreed to take on the role of leader if he was allowed to introduce new elements to the repertoire. He plays the guitar, tres and also a variant of the guitar, with two additional strings. His involvement with the Buena Vista Social Club and the Wim Wenders film of the same name (1999), has led him to worldwide fame. In 2010 he recorded an album with a number of Cuban and Malian musicians, including Toumani Diabaté, titled AfroCubism.

9. Dave Lombardo (b. 1965)

With an HPI of 51.18, Dave Lombardo is the 9th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

David Lombardo (born February 16, 1965) is a Cuban-American drummer, best known as a co-founding member of the thrash metal band Slayer. He currently plays drums with Fantômas, Dead Cross, Mr. Bungle, Empire State Bastard, and Misfits. Lombardo previously played drums on nine Slayer albums, including Reign in Blood (1986) and Christ Illusion (2006). His music career has spanned over 40 years, during which he has been involved in the production of 35 commercial recordings covering a number of genres. He has performed with numerous other bands, including Grip Inc., Philm and Fantômas, in addition to Slayer. Lombardo is widely known as an aggressive heavy metal drummer. His drumming has been praised as "astonishingly innovative". Drummerworld named him "The Godfather of Double Bass". He has had a significant influence on the metal scene and inspired modern metal drummers, particularly extreme metal drummers.

10. Pío Leyva (1917 - 2006)

With an HPI of 50.76, Pío Leyva is the 10th most famous Cuban Musician. His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Pío Leiva (May 5, 1917 – March 22, 2006) was a Cuban singer and the author of the guaracha El Mentiroso ("The Liar"). Leyva was part of the Buena Vista Social Club, and composed some of Cuba's best known standards.

People

Pantheon has 15 people classified as Cuban musicians born between 1907 and 1967. Of these 15, 7 (46.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Cuban musicians include Chucho Valdés, Arturo Sandoval, and Eliades Ochoa. The most famous deceased Cuban musicians include Compay Segundo, Carlos Puebla, and Bebo Valdés. As of April 2024, 2 new Cuban musicians have been added to Pantheon including Eliades Ochoa, and Pío Leyva.