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The famous Panamanian singer and band leader Jaime “Manito” Johnson had played with the orquestas of Victor Paz, Armando Boza and Maximo Rodriguez before he formed his own group “Los Diferentes.” In 2002 he realized a recording titled “Panamá.” His son Jaime jr. set up a studio for recording it and they had a bunch of first class musicians participating… well, things went complicated and this recording was never released. Includes the bolero “Hilda” which is Manito’s favourite and the “Murga” influenced “Panameño-Panameña.” – Evelyn Raetz
Jaime Johnson Jr., Manito’s son, tells us the story of how this album came to be made:
Well if you ask me for some anecdotes about this album I may tell you some as I do remember all this as if it has been today.
One particular fact is that my initial idea was to record an album as an homage to my father and so I asked him if he agreed to sing and record after more than a decade had passed since he left the musical scene and his reply was a very happy: “Of course!”
The essence was already there: his voice and so the next step was to contact Roberto Delgado, musical director of Ruben Blades’s album “la Rosa de los Vientos” which had been released the year before and Roberto at once got together the musicians who would accompany Manito on this project. As a matter of fact I first had thought in Panamanian musicians to participate but the line up Roberto got us was just amazing and so we changed the plan and now had:
Rafael Torres and Toñito Vazquez, the Puerto Rican trombonists who had played for the Fania label, Furito Rios and Encarnación “Chegui” Rodriguez on saxofone we had Mauricio Smith, imagine this – an old time friend of my father …when we were finishing the recording he was in Panama for a workshop led by Cutito Larrinaga, so he showed up at the studio and said: “I have to be part of this and play on this album”… well, we asked ourselves, where and how to include him and he picked the “en la Soledad” piece and plays the tenor sax there – this beautiful sax line you hear there is him and an even bigger surprise was when we asked him for how much we owed him his response was: “for your father it is a special honour for me to play, just go and ask him what experiences we share, he is a close friend of mine…”
Jaime “Manito” Johnson – Voz y lider
Rey Cruz – Timbales
Oscar Cruz – Congas
Dino Nugent - Piano
Roberto Delgado, Director músical, bajo y coros.
Raúl “Toto” Rivera, Bongo, percusión menor
Juan “Wichy” Lopez – Trompeta
Faustino Sanchez – Trompeta
Rafi Torres – Trombon
Toñito Vasquez – Trombon
Jose “Furito” Rios – Sax alto, tenor
Cheguito Encarnacion – Sax tenor, baritono
Roberto Delgado - Coros
Henry Gorgona – Coros
George De Leon – Coros
Rene Cabrera – Coros
Luis Arteaga, Coros
Valeria Obando – Coros
Lolo Ledezma, Coro Panameño, Panameña
Westy Valdez – Bateria
Mauricio Smith – Solo sax
Elian – Voz remix
