Career
At age 11, Portabales began work as a printer's assistant in Cienfuegos. In 1928, he made his radio debut on the station CMHI, and from then on divided his time between his work as a printer and performing.
In the beginning, Portabales sang a variety of styles — canción, tango, bolero, son — until he discovered that his listeners enjoyed the guajira the most. He thereby refined the style and developed his signature salon guajira style in which he depicted in bucolic terms the life of the Cuban guajiro (the rural campesino). In typical trovadore fashion, Portabales sang and played guitar, sometimes accompanied by a small group. His guajiras have a gentle, lilting rhythm, sometimes mixing with elements of the son or the bolero.
Portabales continued to perform and perfect the guajira until he went to Puerto Rico in 1937. There he became enamoured of the neighboring island and stayed there for two years, singing in theaters, clubs and on the radio. In 1939, he married Puerto Rican Arah Mina López, a journalist who joined him as he returned to Cuba in 1939. Over the years they toured together in Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, New York, and Tampa.
After returning to Havana, Portabales performed on stage and radio with the Trio Matamoros. He also made a successful tour of United States and took an extended stay in Barranquilla, Colombia. In 1953, Portabales finally settled for good in Puerto Rico, where he continued to record and perform, with occasional tours of the continent. During the 1960s, he expressed his opposition to the Cuban Revolution in several discreetly poetic compositions.
Read more about this topic: Guillermo Portabales
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