[3] The band featured a number of other star musicians, including Julio Cueva (trumpet) and Mario Bauza (saxophone)[7] The total copies of 78 rpm recordings sold by Victor is unknown, but the song's sales easily topped a million, a first for Cuban (or even Latin) music.

[9] The lyrics were in a style based on street vendors' cries, a pregón; and the rhythm was a son, so technically this was a son-pregón.

On the record label, however, it was called a "rumba-fox trot", reflecting its Cuban origin and the 44 rhythm that suits the fox-trot dance.

On the published score both music and lyrics are attributed to Simons, though there is a persistent story that they were written by Gonzalo G. de Mello in Havana the night before Montaner was due to record it in New York.

Cristóbal Díaz says "For various reasons, we have doubts about this version... 'El manisero' was one of those rare cases in popular music where an author got immediate and substantial financial benefits... logically Mello would have tried to reclaim his authorship of the lyrics, but that did not occur.

For Ortiz, the true author was an unknown Havana peanut seller, of the second half of the 19th century, who served as the basis for a danza written by Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

[1] In the 1960s, famous Nigerian High Life musician Cardinal Rex Lawson used the tune from The Peanut Vendor in his hit song Sawale.