He is best remembered for his compositions, which included many guarachas ("Pare cochero", "Me voy pa'l pueblo"), boleros ("Convergencia", "A mi manera") and songs that straddle both genres ("Sandunguera").
He collaborated with lyricists Julio Blanco Leonard and Bienvenido Julián Gutiérrez, as well as his wife, Mercedes Valdés (not to be confused with Merceditas).
In the mid-1970s he was asked by producer René López to return to music, and began recording with such Latin musicians as Rubén Blades and Eddie Palmieri.
He recorded in 1995 with a host of other Cuban musicians, including Compay Segundo and Omara Portuondo, both of whom would later have their work released under the Buena Vista Social Club umbrella.
Marcelino died in El Campello, a coastal town within the Valencian community in Alicante, Spain, on 30 June 1996, at the age 82 from peritonitis.