AFTER its recording and distribution in New York in May 1930, "El Manisero" (The Peanut Vendor) by Moisés Simons, was seen as the first boom in Latino music which opened the doors of the music industry to the entire region.

It is a son-pregón (street vendor’s cry) describing a peanut vendor who slowly plies his wares along a street, which reaches a climax and then, little by little, begins to fade into the distance.

Through the researcher Ramón Fajardo, it is known that there are different versions of its premiere and the circumstances in which Simons wrote it. Eduardo Robreño relates that he wrote it in an establishment on the corner of San José and Amistad, in the San Leopoldo barrio of Central Havana, which sold milky coffee, chocolate and bread rolls.

Robreño is convinced that one afternoon in 1928, Simons took a napkin, drew the five lines of the pentagram on it and threaded through it a series of compases, within a pure national rhythm.

He continues that a friend supplied the sound for voice and piano, to come up with the definitive words. It was then handed to Rita Montaner who recorded it for Columbia records.

For his part, journalist Félix Soloni places the bar on Virtudes and Consulado, opposite the old Alhambra Theater, later the Musical Theater of Havana. This is more credible, given the establishment’s central and strategic location.

It was in this location that Sergio Acebal founded an elegant bar serving lunch called Bar La Campana, famous for its croquettes and sour-sop milkshakes.

The Bar La Campana was a central meeting place for musicians and artists, and one regular visitor was Ramón Vasconcelos. He would meet for soirees with Simons, Horacio Monteagudo, Sergio Pita and Eliseo Grenet.

Soloní tells his version as follows. A recording company asked Simons for the words to a song; Simons gave the task to Alejo Carpentier, who forgot about it. Á few nights later, in the lobby of the Regina Hotel, Simons asked Gonzalo G. de Mello, translator of O. Henry’s stories, the pseudonym of American William Sydney Porter, to come up with the lyrics.

"I need the words for this song, which Rita Montaner is going to record tomorrow," said Simons and De Mello, improvised the "monster" which would have to do for the words for "El Manisero."
Researcher Carmina Muñoz Alburquerque states that Simons had a close friendship with Alejo Carpentier whom he asked for collaboration with the libretto. At that time, the Spanish writer Gregorio Martínez Sierra was in Havana and asked for a piece for a show containing Cuban folkloric music, which he was thinking of staging in Madrid. Carpentier wrote the text and included décimas and guarachas from the 19th century. But he needed a street vendor’s cry to separate two scenes, and turned to the maestro Amadeo Roldán, who recommended Moisés Simons, who immediately composed "El Manisero."

For her part, Rita Montaner, another person very close to Simons, gave her version in an article published in the Mexican press (La Prensa, April 4, 1933).

According to Rita, she was invited by Ernesto Lecuona to take part in a show dedicated to him; a grand gala in which she could not be missing. But she was in a tight spot. She wanted to give the gala a broader reach, in tribute to her beloved friend and comrade, something that she had not done up until then in his genre, something different. So she decided to go and see Simons.

"I want you to do something for me," she said. "It occurred to be that you could set a popular vendor’s cry to music. What do you think?"

Rita related that in seconds – as he used to describe all his music, the inspired composer wove together the Cuban melody, with sweet and enticing accents, and enchanting suggestions. She added that the song became an instant success on radio, and that a publishing house in the United States launched various editions, calculating that the publishers earned more than 20 million, even though Simons, through one of those all too common defects in registering musical property, barely made 20,000.

Undisputedly Rita was the first to record it on the Columbia label, which opened the doors for it on the international market.

In her premiere of the song in the Regina Theater, Rita studied in dramatic form the way in which peanut vendors called out their product, noted each one of their movements, listened with interest to the voice inflections used to attract people to buy their wares. She thus perfectly recreated the son-pregón which would reflect positively on her future career.

At the New York Place Theater, Antonio Machín did the pregón dressed as a peanut vendor, with a can of peanuts in his hand and the other cupped over his mouth to ensure his cry was heard from a distance.