Omara Portuondo (b. 1930) is a Cuban singer whose career has spanned over half a century. Portuondo was born in October 1930 in Havana, one of three sisters; her mother came from a wealthy Spanish family, and had created a scandal by running off with and marrying a black professional baseball player. Omara started her career in 1945 as a dancer at Havana's Tropicana Club (following her older sister, Haydee).
Eliades Ochoa (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 as its leader, a group founded in 1939. 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 introduced new elements to the repertoire.
