• Submitted by: admin
• international
• Music
• personalities
• 04 / 23 / 2010

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Carlos Varela, Cuba’s “Bob Dylan”, tunes his guitar for an ambitious tour of U.S., a sign that cultural exchanges could survive the deterioration of the relations between both countries.

Varela, one of the sharpest voices of the Cuban trova, rehearsals with his band at a storehouse of Havana’s Karl Marx Theater the repertoire of the May tour that will take him through eight US cities, from Los Angeles to Chicago and Miami.

“The art overall can contribute a lot to the relationships among neighbors (…) We cannot spend so many years so far and so close”, said the musician, 47, dressed in black from top to toe.

Varela will arrive in U.S. in times when the Cuba-U.S. relations under the Obama administration seem to bottom out, after a timid rapprochement in 2009. Varela says that his songs cannot bring the two seasides of the Florida Strait closer nor can
they lift the blockade the United States applies against his country for half a century.

“But they can touch the heart of a man and men are the ones who wage wars and create hatred machines, separations, borders and religions”, he said, holding an acoustic guitar that looks huge for his height.

The tour will take him, for example, on May 15 to the Gusman Center in Miami, where the obstacles imposed by former President George W. Bush frustrated a concert in 2004, whose tickets had already been sold out, thus he tells.

Source: Cubasi