On Sunday, May 23, 1999 at 3:00:00 AM UTC-4, kaysee wrote:

ARTURO FUERTE Oh, no! The grizzled guy with the bandana and the
flamenco guitar who serenades a million Miami tourists isn't a pirate
after all. He's a college professor. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------

. . . Arturo Fuerte

By Lydia Martin
Photograph by Nuri Valbona

------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------
Ten minutes after you take your table at Wajiros, a Cuban restaurant on
the far-west end of Eighth Street (as in, you might as well drop in on
the Miccosukees you're so far west) a waiter comes to your table and
asks your lunch date if he happens to be Arturo Fuerte.
Arturo 'fesses up.

``The Americanos at that table over there are very big fans of yours,''
says the waiter. ``They wanted me to check if it was really you.''

Arturo smiles toward the Americanos. He gets a lot of that. Especially
from Americanos.

Even if you don't know his name, you'd know him. He's a dead giveaway
in his pirate's bandana, which he's wearing even now over lunch --
grilled chicken breast and salad. Plus, the Spanish guitar is resting
at his side.

If you ever strolled Ocean Drive, ever went to Bayside Marketplace,
ever did Cocowalk or Las Olas Riverfront, you've seen him.

He's the pop flamenco guy in the billowy-sleeved shirt and the
bandanas, the guitar player who seems to be everywhere all at once.

What tourist to South Florida hasn't caught the strains of his guitar
doing some over-the-top, tropical-flavored, flamenco-flourished ditty?
Who hasn't walked away trying to yank from their subconscious the
melody of one of those ditties? You know, Cielito Lindo, Besame Mucho,
Cuando Calienta el Sol.

In the carnival that is Ocean Drive, or Bayside, or any other local
tourist mecca, Arturo's sound has become a trademark. You have your
palm trees, your rum runners, your parrots riding people's shoulders,
your barely dressed locals, your bronzed Rollerbladers. And your
amplified Spanish guitar sounds wafting over it all -- the soundtrack
to fun in the sun, Miami style.

And without fail, you have your clog of people singing along. Ay, ay,
ay, ay - canta y no llores.

It's not quite the career Arturo had been building up to in Cuba. He
was a classical guitar player. A university professor. A guy with lofty ideals about music.

``I saw myself reaching the place where I played classical guitar in a theater, where I did serious concerts.''

But then one day in 1980, a bunch of Cubans stormed the Peruvian
embassy, clamoring for asylum. Arturo went home and got his wife and two-year-old daughter and joined the growing mob on the embassy's
grounds.

``We went 14 days without eating. We were eating the leaves off trees
just to have something in our stomachs.''

They arrived in Miami on the Mariel Boatlift. Arturo was guitar-less
again. ``I had nothing, except the underwear I had on, and even that
was old.''

A University of Miami professor he met gave him his first guitar. In
the beginning, he did construction work. Eventually, he began playing
with a string of artists -- Raul D. Blasio, Nelson Ned, Lucho Gaticas, Roberto Torres, Miguel Bose, Lucia Mendez. But the pay wasn't great and Arturo had a falling out with one of them (He won't offer up any
details.) One day about five years ago, when he was finally over
playing for other people, he grabbed his guitar and went to Ocean Drive
in search of a gig at any of the tourist-friendly restaurants.

The Cardozo, owned by Gloria and Emilio, was the first to bite. He grew
a following, eventually playing all over Ocean, from the Beacon Hotel,
to Paparazzi, to the Colony.

``It's not the way I saw my career in the beginning, but I love the way
it is right now.''

This is a guy so in love with guitar that at 11, when scarcity in his homeland made it difficult for his mother to find him one, he fashioned
one out of a plank of wood and fishing string. He painted on the frets
and practiced on the thing until he could get a real guitar.

He's still a freak like that.

``I play the guitar all day. Even though that's what I do for a living,
when I'm home and not working, I have the guitar by my side the whole
time. I started playing at 7 a.m. today.

That's why he likes his outdoor gigs, and why he does so many of them,
why he's everywhere.

``Sure, I love the idea of being a concert guitarist, but the truth is
that I fear taking that step because I have to play all the time. I
can't be without playing. I can't just do a concert every now and then.
I feel best when I can connect with people every day. When you hear
Chinese people and Japanese people singing along to what you're
playing, when you close your eyes and open them again to find a mob of
people on the street watching you, you know why you're doing this.''

Lydia Martin is a Herald Staff Writer.

--== Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ ==--
---Share what you know. Learn what you don't.---

He passed away last week.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)