Manuel Corona (musician)

Manuel Corona Raimundo (17 June 1880, in Caibarién – 9 January 1950 in Marianao, Havana) was a Cuban trova musician, and a long-term professional rival of Sindo Garay.

His supervisor at the cigar factory taught him the guitar, and in 1905 he set up in a café in the red-light district of San Isidro.

The district was controlled by the chulo (pimp) Alberto Yarini (1882–1910), who became famous for introducing French prostitutes (putas francesas) willing to perform more salacious acts than even the Cubans were used to.

[2] The francesas cut heavily into the profits of the Cuban putas, and the result was a gang war in which Yarini was killed.

[3] He wrote hundreds of compositions, some of them amongst the finest examples of Cuban sentiment, such as Mercedes, Longina, Santa Cecilia and Aurora.