Here are three versions of the AfroCuban dance classic “Don Lengua”, one of a number of songs in the canon that warns against the dangers of chisme/gossip and how they can damage communities (see also Eddie Palmieri’s “Sujetate la Lengua”, Conjunto Paquito (Justo Betancourt)’s “La Negra Caridad” etc.)
This first version is a sublime Son by Ignacio Piñeiro’s Septeto Nacional, absolutely a song you could share with someone who wanted to hear the essence of Cuban Son. Though the Septeto Nacional – among the founding fathers of the Cuban Son – had their original heyday in the 1920’s and ’30s, they reformed in the late ’50s and recorded a number of sessions well into the ’60s. According to the back of the West Side Latino LP, this session was recorded in 1958 at Radio Progreso in La Habana, and Piñeiro himself is the author
The next version is by Ray Barretto from the epic El Ray Criollo LP (1965), during his transition from violin-led Charanga to trumpet-led Conjunto. This LP features singer Willie Garcia, a young, blond cuban Sonero who married La Lupe and became her manager (she apparently did not choose her men well, as he, like her first husband, abused her). Garcia, who was later diagnosed as schizophrenic, made a comeback as a singer in the early ’70s, singing on Joe Cuba’s Hecho y Derecho LP, with Grupo Folklorico, Chocolate and others in the booming ’70s scene.
The last version is a personal favorite, from Panama’s Orquesta Nueva Vida, a short-lived group made of members of Los Mozambiques, one of the best Combos Nacionales that graced the Panamanian airwaves in the ’60s and ’70s. Eduardo Williams supplies the soulful vocals on this 45, and I believe David Choy is on Electric Piano, but that remains to be confirmed. This version is likely from 1974-75.
Disfruten!