TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/012990/0129520.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 12.1 KB | 243 lines

                                                                                PROFILE, Page 70

Singer, Actor, Politico


Multilingual and polycultural, RUBEN BLADES aims to shake up
the world (and run for President of Panama along the way)

By GUY D. GARCIA


    Ruben Blades is losing his patience. Dressed in a flashy
magenta jacket and a black narrow-brimmed hat, he fidgets with
his breakfast at Pluto's restaurant, a greasy spoon in the
Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn. He is on his third cup of
coffee when Spike Lee walks in and takes a seat at the counter.
"Giant, see the paper?" Blades says, holding up a copy of the
New York Post.

    "I can read," Lee replies, as he sidles over to Blades'
booth.

    "Can you count?" Blades rejoins. "You owe me. What are we
going to do?"

    "Cut!" someone yells, and Petey the uptight bookie once
again becomes Blades the affable actor. The Panamanian-born,
Harvard-educated lawyer and international salsa star is filming
a cameo for Variations on the Mo' Better Blues, Lee's follow-up
to his controversial hit, Do the Right Thing. After the final
take, the crew bursts into applause. "I look for people who are
natural in front of the camera," says Lee of his decision to
cast Blades. "Ruben is a very naturalistic actor and a really
nice guy."

    During the ride back to Manhattan, Blades returns the
compliment. "It's always a pleasure to find someone whose work
is authentic," he says. "Playing with my band is the same
feeling. It's like dancing with the truth, and she likes it. The
closer you get, the more you enjoy it; the more you dance, the
better it feels."

    Multilingual and multifaceted, Blades has a knack for being
different things to different people. In his native Panama, he
is a respected lawyer and national celebrity, a man of the
people and potential presidential contender. To fans of
Caribbean salsa, he is a musical pioneer and a charismatic
leader of the Nueva Cancion (New Song) movement, a steamy mix
of poetry, politics and tropical rhythms that has left an
imprint on Latin music. In the U.S., he is an up-and-coming
actor who has worked with Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg and
Robert Redford in such films as Fatal Beauty, Critical Condition
and The Milagro Beanfield War.

    Small wonder Blades' detractors, perhaps a bit jealously,
have accused him of spreading himself too thin. "It's not a
problem because I'm doing things that I like," he says. "I know
I can't be at two places at the same time."

    But that has not stopped him from trying. In addition to
writing the score for the upcoming Sidney Lumet film Q and A,
Blades has completed acting parts in three movies: Spike Lee's
film; The Lemon Sisters, starring Diane Keaton; and The Two
Jakes, the sequel to Chinatown that features Jack Nicholson as
star and director. Nicholson shot around Blades' music tour in
order to nab him for the role of Mickey Nice, a Jewish gangster
from Los Angeles' Boyle Heights section. "He brought a lot of
energy and good acting instincts to the role," reports
Nicholson. "I think the result is fabulous." Blades and his band
Son del Solar (Sound of the Tenement) are in the midst of
completing three new records for the Elektra label -- a live
recording plus two studio albums -- to be released over the next
three years. He will also try to squeeze in a drama workshop at
Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, based on Dead Man Out, the HBO
movie in which he stirringly portrays a death-row prisoner.

    Yet for all his show-biz appeal, Blades (he accepts both the
English and Spanish pronunciations of his name since his
grandfather, Reuben Blades, was born on the British island of
St. Lucia) remains ambivalent toward the trappings of fame. One
aspect of stardom that Blades finds particularly loathsome is
the notion that celebrities are a privileged breed, an elite
group that must insulate themselves from the rabble. Instead,
the four-time Grammy nominee has tried to remain as accessible
to his public as possible. Until just a few years ago, he had
his home phone number printed on the back of his album covers.
He abandoned the practice when his increasingly itinerant
schedule made it impossible for him to answer calls from his
fans.

    Dressed in jeans, sneakers and a black T-shirt, Blades looks
younger than his 41 years as he comes to the door of the New
York City apartment he owns with his wife of three years,
American actress Lisa Blades. "I'm just cleaning up a little,"
he explains. Courteous and soft-spoken, Blades sweeps his
living-room floor while he speaks, his lightly accented speech
peppered with Spanish words and American slang. When a topic
stirs him, Blades can become animated and emphatic, pacing,
pointing, his brown eyes bright with conviction.

    His eyes light up often. Like a latter-day Joshua, Blades
is dedicated to breaking down the walls of ignorance and
intolerance on both sides of the north-south border. He is a
cross-cultural crusader, iconoclast and self-appointed
conscience of the hemisphere who is determined to fight for
truth, justice and the Pan-American way, even if it means
sacrificing some of his own chances for commercial success. "I
will never be a superstar," says Blades. "My role is to be
different, to do what others won't do, and, as a result, my
fortunes will always fluctuate. I will always be viewed with
suspicion by some, though not by all, because I move against the
current."

    Blades made waves in 1984, when he put his career on hold
and headed north to Harvard University, where he spent the year
earning a master's degree in international law. "My music fans
were stunned," says Blades. "One guy in Colombia even wrote a
letter to a newspaper. He wanted to know why I was going to this
school, the cradle of capitalism, and why I just didn't stay
with music. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I don't
see why I can't go there and learn and utilize what I've learned
for something constructive."

    To Blades, something constructive includes the possibility
of someday running for President of Panama. The U.S. invasion
of his country, which Blades denounces as a "flagrant
transgression of international law," has only increased his
determination to enter political life. Yet he is aware that his
chances of electoral success hinge on cultivating a broad-based
constituency. "I've always made it clear that I wasn't playing
the Latin version of Jesus. I need local support for my
position."

    One way Blades hopes to foster that support is by founding
an independent political party that he says will speak for
Panamanians who are not represented by General Manuel Noriega
or the current U.S.-backed government. "What I propose is to
create what up to this point has been a mythical place: a Latin
America that respects and loves itself, is incorruptible,
romantic, nationalistic and has a human perception of the needs
of the world at large." Blades is traveling to Panama next month
to "see the situation for myself" but refuses to predict when
he might return there permanently. Says Blades: "I can tell you
this, I will go back to Panama, and it won't be when I'm 60 or
even 50. I'll be there this decade."

    Growing up in Panama City, Blades listened to a polyglot hit
parade that included singer Frankie Lymon, as well as Elvis
Presley, the Platters and the Beatles. Following in the
footsteps of his conga-playing father, Blades started singing
with local Afro-Cuban bands. He enrolled in law school at the
University of Panama, "to please my parents," and passed the
bar. But a short visit to New York City left the young attorney
torn between the courtroom and the recording studio. The final
verdict favored music, and by 1974 Blades was back in Manhattan
for good. "This was the place to be," he says. "There was a
strong Latin-music movement."

    It wasn't long before Blades joined the roster of young
Latin musicians at Fania records, the leading salsa label. In
1978 he and trombonist Willie Colon recorded the album Siembra
(Seed), which went on to become one of the best-selling salsa
albums of all time. Meanwhile Blades had begun to tinker with
the salsa formula, replacing the horns with synthesizers and
augmenting the basic Afro-Cuban beat with strains of jazz, '50s
doo-wop and rock.

    His lyrics were equally innovative. Instead of the familiar
themes of love and loss, he wrote vividly poetic images,
inspired by the free-flowing narratives found in the works of
Latin writers like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Carlos Fuentes.
"Most Latin songs are about the guy who betrayed his best
friend, or the women who left him, or saying let's party,"
explains Blades, who opted instead to paint an expressionist
canvas that included blessed sinners and murdered priests, the
cry of political revolt and the stifled silence between lovers.
In Ojos de Perro Azul (Eyes of a Blue Dog), from the album Agua
de Luna (Moon Water), Blades drew inspiration for words and
music from the stories of his friend Garcia Marquez:


    Eyes of a blue dog, cynically staring at a city,
cryptically smiling at humanity;     elliptically judging
society.     Eyes of a blue dog, dementedly searching for
reality,     hoping to suddenly see the truth,     shining,
ominously, in the darkness.


    Blades' polemically charged tunes occasionally inspired more
than just dancing. In 1980 Tiburon (Shark), an allegory for
superpower interventionism, was banned by Miami radio stations,
and Blades had to wear a bulletproof vest while performing
there. Decisiones (Decisions), from his 1984 album Buscando
America (Searching for America), was banned by Panama's censors
for allegedly promoting abortion.

    The following year Blades launched his film career with
Crossover Dreams, in which he starred as Rudy Veloz, a Latin
boxer and aspiring singer who makes it big in English-speaking
America. The role proved uncannily prescient. The one-two punch
of good reviews for Crossover Dreams and a growing chorus of
critical acclaim for Buscando America attracted ever larger
numbers of English-speaking fans. Blades acknowledges his
bilingual audience by making sure the lyrics to his songs are
always printed on the jackets in Spanish and English.

    With each succeeding album, Blades has continued to expand
the established limits of Latin music. Escenas (Scenes) featured
British rocker Joe Jackson and Linda Ronstadt singing in
Spanish, in what might be called "reverse crossover." It was
only a matter of time before Blades broke the language barrier,
and in 1988 he released his first album in English, Nothing but
the Truth. Featuring collaborations with Lou Reed, Elvis
Costello and other non-Latin artists, the record made several
Top Ten lists but was a commercial dud. "That album pissed a lot
of people off," Blades says. "Some people felt I should be the
second coming of the Miami Sound Machine. Some people objected
because I wrote a rock-'n'-roll song. On the other hand, you
had Latino people saying, `Why are you singing in English?
Aren't we good enough for you?'"

    Blades blames "ignorance and fear" for the gulf that
persists between Latins and Anglos. "Paul Simon is doing an
album in Spanish, and Ronstadt and Los Lobos just did albums in
Spanish, so what's the big deal?" asks Blades, who eschews the
term crossover to describe such projects. "It implies an
acceptance of a barrier," Blades explains, "and I refuse to
acknowledge a barrier. I think the barriers are in the mind and
in the heart. People tell me, `You close your eyes, and you're
too idealistic,' and I have to say no. In all honesty, I never
saw the barrier."

    And even if Blades did, he wouldn't let it stop him. When
not singing or acting, Blades unwinds by painting watercolors
("mostly faces") or reading (George Orwell and Hunter S.
Thompson). His goals include writing and directing a film set
in Panama, making a documentary feature and recording an
all-instrumental album. Meanwhile Blades' fearless muse is once
again pointing him toward uncharted musical waters. "I already
know something is brewing," he says. "Some people will be
surprised." And a few more walls will come tumbling down.