Formerly a fisherman who ultimately was fated to worldwide success from a documentary film. “Tito” Gonzalez continues to impress with his class act and natural talent.

Heriberto “Tito” Gonzalez, “El Trecero mayor”, arrived in the San Francisco Bay area in the summer of 2000. His music is typical and primarily “El Son”, the music you know from the Buena Vista Social Club. Now, with a new life in San Francisco and the songwriter’s freedom to experiment and story-tell, Tito, a consummate master of Cuban traditional music, brings a fresh sound to a lifetime of experience. His new album, Al doblar la esquina (March 2010), features a fresh take on classic Cuban son backed up by exile talent in his band, the “Son de Cuba”.

There aren’t many people who can claim to have cut their musical teeth while traveling worldwide as a fisherman, then being blasted onto national television as part of a taxi-driver’s collective of musicians, and had a government agency land them a gig playing for one of the top Cuban son bands of their era.

Tito Gonzales spent his young life walkabout, picking up guitar licks around the rim of the sea thanks to a Cuban-run company that sent fisherman like him far and wide to find the catch. The open water swept him into the urban narrows, and, back on dry land, he traded up for the sound of the tres (small Cuban guitar) and the Cuban son, yet his talent only led him to ordinary labor. Fate had in store for him a different destiny, a rapid ascendance from cabbie to celebrity and a star of the Cuban music scene.

“Tito” studied with Tres master Papi Oviedo of the Buena Vista Social Club and then with the greatest guitarist in Cuba, Octavio Sanchez Cotán.

“Tito” is teaching, playing and jamming in the Bay Area “Cuban Son” scene. Since his arrival here in the USA he has had the honor of playing with such greats as Oscar De Leon, Larry Harlow and Orestes Vilato to name a few. Tito has played his authentic high energy Cuban music on such great stages as the world renowned Yoshi’s in San Francisco and Oakland, California. Tito also plays internationally, he was recently requested to play for the Kings Coronation on the Island of Tonga.

Off stage, Tito teaches the tres (including some workshops at the Berkeley Jazz School), and he has dedicated this album to his students. While on stage, Tito is the flawless showman, draped in suits and dignified fedoras in solid secondary colors. The quiet man comes to life with an energy that carries into the studio, where his smooth, mature voice, sometimes compared to that of classic son singer Daniel Santos in his later days, delivers love notes up and down the street with every slight inflection.