Pacho Alonso (August 22, 1928 – August 27, 1982) was a Cuban singer and
bandleader
A bandleader is the leader of a music group such as a dance band, rock or pop band or jazz quartet. The term is most commonly used with a group that plays popular music as a small combo or a big band, such as one which plays jazz, blues, rhyth ...
from
Santiago de Cuba
Santiago de Cuba is the second-largest city in Cuba and the capital city of Santiago de Cuba Province. It lies in the southeastern area of the island, some southeast of the Cuban capital of Havana.
The municipality extends over , and contains t ...
who is attributed with creating the musical form
pilón
Pilón is a Cuban musical form and a popular dance created in the 1950s. named for the town of Pilón, on the southern coast of Cuba. The rhythms of Pilón are based on the motions of pounding sugarcane. One unique aspect of the pilón is the u ...
in collaboration with percussionist/composer Enrique Bonne. He founded his first
conjunto
The term ''conjunto'' (, literally 'group', 'ensemble') refers to several types of small musical ensembles present in different Latin American musical traditions, mainly in Mexico and Cuba. While Mexican conjuntos play styles such as '' norteño' ...
in
Havana
Havana (; ) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. In the 1950s, Alonso sang with
Benny Moré
Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez (24 August 1919 – 19 February 1963), better known as Benny Moré (also spelled Beny Moré), was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was ...
and Fernando Álvarez, a trio popularly known as "''The Three Musketeers''". Later he sang with
Ibrahim Ferrer
Ibrahim Ferrer (20 February 1927 – 6 August 2005) was a Cuban singer who played with the group Los Bocucos for nearly forty years. He also performed with Conjunto Sorpresa, Chepín y su Orquesta Oriental, and Mario Patterson. After his re ...
. Pacho Alonso also enjoyed tremendous success in his international tours through
Latin America
Latin America is the cultural region of the Americas where Romance languages are predominantly spoken, primarily Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese. Latin America is defined according to cultural identity, not geogr ...
,
Europe
Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...
and
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent after Asia. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 20% of Earth's land area and 6% of its total surfac ...