One night in 1984, Compay Segundo, the Cuban singer and guitarist, heard in his dreams what would become his signature song.
“I woke up hearing those four sensitive notes,” Segundo recalled later on. “I gave them a lyric inspired by a children’s tale from my childhood, ‘Juanica y Chan Chan.'”
A hypnotic account of peasant life in Cuba, “Chan Chan” has a peculiar power, with four circular, mesmerizing opening chords that make it instantly recognizable. It gained a regional following when it was cut by the guitarist and singer Eliades Ochoa. But a recording of the song, in 1996, by a group of celebrated Cuban musicians who had been assembled for an album to be called “Buena Vista Social Club,” would become a phenomenon.
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