His second great studio album
5
By MZanger
Caminando is the peak of Blades' songwriting and production after the break-up with Willie Colon (First peak: Siembra). It has all his elements, including retrieving Cipriano Armenteros, a bad-guy ballad he had attempted to write as a novel but gave as a song to Ismael Miranda. (There are also subtle shout-outs to Richie Ray and Cortijo/Ismael Rivera.) The first and last cuts are attempts to cross Caribbean boundaries and rhythms. The political peaks are Tengan Fe, about the power of memory against historical forces; and Mientras Duerme, which is a kind of vision of all the elements of society. Ella se Esconde is perhaps his best love song. Camaleon, apparently a nasty cut on his former partner, is a slow, swinging son montuno. Obalue reflects his spiritual side, and also relates to EL, my least favorite, but one of Ruben's several attempts to understand homosexuality. When I heard this material live before getting the album, Tengan Fe had me in tears. I still think it opens an entirely different view of political song that prefigures velvet revolutions. (The third peak, for me, is Mundo).
