Chicago Tribune 
October 6, 1985 

SINGER RUBEN BLADES GOES FROM SALSA TO CINEMA IN
'CROSSOVER DREAMS' 

By Robert Blau, Entertainment writer. 

In "Crossover Dreams," the rising actor-singer Ruben
Blades, in his first major screen role, portrays a
salsa musician named Rudy Veloz who experiences
short-lived fame. The character must have seemed
familiar to 
Blades, a salsa musician himself, who played the same
kinds of clubs that Veloz did, sang the same kind of
music, and endlessly shook the same maracas 
--a joyful sound, a Latin sound--from obscurity. But
that's where the similarity between Blades and the
fictional Veloz ends. 
    "We both wanted something better for ourselves,"
Blades says in richly accented English, "but Rudy
Veloz panicked." 
    Blades has not panicked, and today, he could be
the luckiest salsa musician in the world. 

    In his homeland of Panama, Blades, 37, is a
superstar of varied configurations. Acting is simply
the latest entry on his long and diverse resume. He
recently earned a master's degree in law from Harvard
University and he talks passionately about entering
political life back home. He is not an American
citizen nor has he any plans to become one. 
    "Rupert Murdoch becomes an American citizen
because it's good for his business," Blades says. "I'm
a Panamanian." 
    In the U.S., Blades has begun to penetrate the
mainstream of American popular culture. Despite the
fact that all of his albums have been recorded in 
Spanish, his melodious charm and clackety Latin rhythm
can bring you to tears and back tapping, shaking, with
that familiar salsa beat. 
    Ruben Blades arrived in New York in 1974, an
ambitious singer armed conspicuously with maracas and
a law degree from the University of Panama. He 
moved into an apartment on the Upper West Side and has
lived there ever since. The neighborhood has changed.
His street is quieter, safer and, he says, there 
is more sushi and ice cream than anyone can stand. 
    "When I came here, I didn't want to be a nuclear
scientist. I knew what I wanted to do," he explains
with his own rhetorical blend--part borscht belt 
comedian, part hyperbolic wizard, part Latin
explosion. "I wanted to be a musician. I couldn't do
it at home. We didn't have the studios you have here, 
or the record distribution, the arrangers or the
producers." 
    Shortly after his arrival, Blades joined the Ray
Barretto band, a well-known salsa troupe. With
Barretto, and later with Willie Colon, another 
prominent salsa musician, Blades established himself
in the New York "cuchifrito" circuit that linked Latin
communities in upper Manhattan and the outer boroughs
of the city. A single he recorded with Colon in 1976
is said to be one of the largest-selling salsa records
ever. 
    "I survived without having to rob anybody," he
says. 'I was a good singer and I could write songs . .
. I was very responsible in my work." 
    His musical career soared in 1984 with the release
of "Buscando America," (Searching for America), which
he recorded with his band Seis del Solar (Six from the
Courtyard). In Panamanian housing projects like the
one where Blades grew up, the courtyard serves as an
evening gathering place where people play music and
"watch the breeze." 
    "Buscando America" has already sold more than
300,000 copies. Its mixture of politically charged
ballads and traditional salsa rythms has clearly
attracted a wider American audience than most Latin
recording artists are accustomed to. His next album
with Seis del Solar, "Escenas," is scheduled for
release later this month. 
    Blades' music, like his acting, is self taught. He
reluctantly admits that "Crossover Dreams" is actually
his second film effort, the first being "The Last
Fight," a portrait of a down-and-out boxer. 
    " 'Gone With the Wind' it was not," he says. 
    As a youngster, he was happily bombarded by
American popular culture and it guided his fantasies
about life in the U.S.. Most probably, it also taught 
him how to perform on the stage and on the screen. 
    "The U.S. is a country we always looked up to," he
explains. "I admired the movies--Fred Astaire films,
Bob Hope films--my grandmother took me every day. I
admired the music--Elvis Presley, Bill Haley--the
sense of liberty, the notion that you could do
anything you wanted to do." 
    "There was a time when Latin music was in every
American movie. There was a time when it was
fashionable to dance the mamba. There was a time when 
you had a Latin American band leader marry a white
woman and have a child on a TV program called "I Love
Lucy." It became the biggest TV program in this 
country. Nobody felt threatened by Latins then. But
the perceptions begin to change when the politics
begin to change. In 1960 you have Fidel Castro, and 
that is the end of the honeymoon. Now what do you see?
The "Rambos," the "Scarfaces," the newspapers; Central
America--a bunch of crazy people killing each other,
kidnaping each other." 
    His own sense of outrage at political developments
in Latin America inspired many of the songs on
"Buscando America" including "El Padre Antonio," a
steel drum-tinged ballad about the murder of a South
American priest at the altar. "Desapariciones" is the
melancholy search for vanished relatives, all of them
victims of political paranoia and oppression. 
    Ironically, in "Escenas," as in his
not-yet-completed musical interpretation of the early
stories of Colombian author Gabriel Garcia Marquez,
the political emphasis has diminished. 
    "It's more reflective of people and their
relationships," he explains. "I also use synthesizers
in it exclusively. The idea is to get away from the
stereotypes. 'Oh, a Latin band. Let's have trumpets
and trombones. Oh, Latins, women walk around with
fruit on their heads, and their men yell ole and have
long mustaches. Why? Why does it have to be like
that?" 
    For Blades, "crossing over" has never been the
antidote for cultural stereotypes. 
    "Crossing over sounds like abandonment," he says.
"I've never let go of my cultural roots. I'm very
happy with them. They will allow your spirit to 
survive. I'm not going to die my hair blond and be
self-conscious not to have an accent when I speak. . .
. Other people don't feel that way. Rudy (Veloz, the
movie's lead) was someone who didn't have the strength
to overcome this thing." 
    An earlier version of "Crossover Dreams" (which
opened this weekend at the Biograph Theater) ended
tragically. Veloz desperately cuts a drug deal in 
Colombia, then turns up in the gutter, his body
riddled with bullets. 
    Instead, Blades helped write an ending that both
he and Rudy Veloz could live with; one that expressed
his own hopes for Latins in the new world amid the
frustrations of the immigrant experience. 
    "They never make a movie that shows a Latin in a
positive way," Blades says. "We needed to lift the
peoples' spirits." 
    Since his critically acclaimed performance, Blades
reads new scripts every week. Despite the film's
guardedly hopeful message, Hollywood, he says, still
wants to make a drug dealer out of him. 
    "I get calls from soap operas wanting me to play a
gun runner, or a leader of the contras," he says.
"Where are the movies that do not depict a Latin as a
drug pusher, a pimp, a lowlife?  I tell you, here are
a couple of movies coming out that are going to make
"Scarface" look like a Boy Scout picnic. If we don't
do these films ourselves, nobody is going to do a real
film about a Latin. We've got to stop thinking that
somebody is going to save us. 
    "Latin culture is a culture that has a heart," he
continues. "We're people just like everyone else. In a
world where we need each other we've got to stop
looking at each other like we're different. I think
it's a simple solution." 
    The solution, Blades says, has something to do
with exposure. Maybe massive public relations
campaigns have a place. Maybe political leadership, 
too, has a role to play, and certainly coverage of the
vast territory of other places, other people. 
    "North Americans are very provincial in their
outlook," Blades says. "They don't know what's going
on beyond their borders because they don't need to.
You know, 'We are self- sufficient, we are the world,
we are the people." 
    Just over a week ago, Blades opened a New York
newspaper and was stunned to find on page 24, right on
top of a furniture ad, a small item announcing the
resignation of Panamanian President Nicolas Ardito
Barletta. Did anyone in New York, a city of more than
3 million Latins, even notice it? Typical, he thought.

    For now, a small movie and a couple of records ill
have to carry the message of what Blades like to call
"convergence." 
    Not that many Latins in New York City have seen
the film. It opened in the heart of Midtown, an area
Blades says most of the Latin community is not
familiar with. He hopes the distributors will move it
Uptown soon. 
  
Robert Blau has joined The Chicago Tribune as an
entertainment writer.