Ry Cooder credited as playing...
Self
- Ry Cooder: My son, Joachim and I, came back here to Havana in March 1998. We'd been here before, about two years ago, recording the "Buena Vista Social Club". Making records about 35 years and I can tell you, you never know what the publics going to go for. This turned out to be the one they liked best. I liked it the best. One of the great things about that record turned out to be Ibrahim Ferrer. He'd come in off the street, kinda like a Cuban Nate King Cole. You stubble on somebody like this maybe once in your life. We wanted to try recording with him. Make a solo record. Let him be heard.
- Ibrahim Ferrer: [singing] Asleep in my garden, The spikenards and the roses, The white lilies, And my soul, So very sad and sorrowful, It wants to hid from the flowers, Its bitter pain
- Omara Portuondo: I don't want the flowers to know, Of the torments, Life brings my way, If they knew how I'm suffering, They too would weep for my sorrow
- Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo: Hush, For they are sleeping, The spikenards, And the lilies, I don't want them to know, Of my sorrows, For if they see me weeping, They will die...
- Ry Cooder: You always have to ask who wrote it and are they still living, you know. In case they maybe here, they come down. You get them to come down. More people, you know, have died, but so many are left. So, we always want to try to find those people. You know, they might be down the street. They might be here. Who knows? They might be around the corner. You never know.
- Ry Cooder: That's the one we needed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Beautiful. Beautiful. I couldn't live through another one, I know that.
- Ry Cooder: Flying back to Los Angeles I started thinking what a great thing it would be to get everybody together and do a show someplace. By that time, the record had become so popular that these guys were all really busy. The only place we could get everybody together was Amsterdam at the Cray Theater, two nights in April. Everybody knows Carnegie Hall's the place to go. The Cubans kept asking me, "When are going to New York? When are we going to Carnegie Hall?" I actually never thought it would happen. And a lot of people worked hard and tried really. hard. And on July first we were there.
- Ry Cooder: [referring to the July 1, 1998 performance at Carnegie Hall, New York] It was a great night. They loved it. I loved it. Everybody just went crazy. But that would be the last show for the Buena Vista Social Club.