Life's Little Surprises A Memoir

The life and times of a living legend, the most successful and influential singer/songwriter of the past fifty years throughout the Spanish-speaking world, who also happens to be an acclaimed Hollywood and Broadway actor, a Harvard Law School graduate with a Master’s degree in international law, and a political activist who ran for president in his native Panama. Blades has lived a life in full, and he tells of it with infectious brio, honesty, and wit: He writes about his mother, a Cuban child prodigy musician and radio drama actress, and his father, who was born in Colombia and was a percussionist and officer of the secret police. He also writes about his arrival in New York City from Panama in the 1970s and his rise as a leading light among the Fania-All Stars in salsa’s glory years. Blades writes about his initially productive and ultimately fraught collaborations with the great trombonist/singer Willie Colón, which resulted in the release of Siembra, the best-selling salsa album of all time.