Ageless romance with bolero.

• Author: Holston, Mark

The bolero, for centuries the love song of the Spanish-speaking world, has now spread far beyond its Cuban birthplace to capture the imagination of a vast international audience. Although scholars differ on its precise origins, all agree that the form in modern times is best described as a ballad of slow to medium tempo endowed with romantic lyrics.

Today, the bolero's many charms remain as potent as when such 1950s-era singing stars as Lucho Gatica and Olga Guillot made songs like "Solamente una vez" and "Delirio" all but synonymous with Latin American culture to the rest of the world. As multimillion-dollar record companies mine the riches of their aural archives to make historic bolero performances by such revered interpreters as Beny More, Tito Rodriguez, and Trio Los Panchos available for the first time on compact disc for the enjoyment of a new audience of bolero worshipers, singers who were not even born when the style reached its zenith of popularity have discovered the genre and have made the music their own. The phenomenal global interest in the efforts of the new generation of interpreters has fueled the bolero's resurgence and has elevated the style to its highest level of popularity in over four decades.

Much of the credit for the current bolero resurgence must go to Luis Miguel, the Mexican pop music superstar whose fashion-model good looks, youthful appeal, and high-powered voice have made him one of the most popular recording artists in the Spanish language today.

The twenty-five-year-old crooner's cross-generational appeal and vocal acumen made him the ideal candidate to spark new interest in the venerable bolero form. In 1991 his decision to collaborate with Mexico's modern bolero composer Armando Manzanero to craft a contemporary tribute to the style appeared to some to have been artistically presumptuous and a highly risky career move, but the resulting album, Romance (WEA Latina), tapped a responsive chord that echoed around the world. Now recognized as a masterpiece of modem music making, the album's irresistible combination of classic songs, string-laden arrangements, and subtle contemporary influences proved to be the perfect formula to reawaken the bolero's slumbering passions once again.

To date, Romance has sold close to six million copies and even after four years in the marketplace is still immensely popular. In the U.S., the effort has so far tallied sales of half a million. Throughout the Spanish-speaking world mesmerized fans made it one of the biggest selling albums ever in country after country. The sale of over fifty thousand albums in Taiwan was astounding evidence of the music's universal appeal.

Romance's unparalleled success was instant proof that the bolero was not only back but that it had probably never really gone away. The form, with its emphasis on poetic lyrics and appeal to romance, reflects certain timeless qualities of Latin societies throughout the Americas. Although the bolero style would be considered all but anachronistic outside of Latin culture in the U.S., where the kind of ballad singing that...