Venezuelan Birthday Song - Ay Que Noche Tan Preciosa

UPDATE: Sadly, Luis Cruz, the creator of Venezuela's unique Happy Birthday song "Ay Que Noche Tan Preciosa" died in Cabudare, Lara State, on 21 April 2012 aged 82. As long as Venezuelans continue to celebrate birthdays he will never be forgotten.

Venezuelans love socializing and there's no better excuse for hearty partying than a birthday celebration.

Birthdays are celebrated in the office with workmates, at a bar or restaurant, on the beach under a palm tree, or with friends and family at home, but always with a cake and a special birthday song that is unique to the country.

This song is generally known simply as "Cumpleaños Feliz" ("Happy Birthday to You") or by its first line "Ay Que Noche Tan Preciosa" ("Oh What a Beautiful Night").

It dates back to 1953 when a Venezuelan composer called Luis Cruz from Los Chorros in Caracas wanted to impress a girlfriend called Rebeca and penned the words of the song for her birthday.

Cruz continued to play the song as a cha-cha-cha with his trio Los Latinos, and it was even recorded by a few artists, although without great success.

All that changed in 1964 when Venezuelan singer Emilio Arvelo, originally from El Recreo, included it on an album of boleros and the song became a massive hit across Latin America.

Now living in Mamporal in Miranda State and 76 years old, Arvelo recalled in an interview a few years ago how the song made him internationally famous.

"Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Panama and Puerto Rico. Everywhere it reached, people came in crowds to receive us with affection."

Even today, in his small town everybody remembers him: "People greet me, they are fond of me... They say: 'There goes happy birthday!'... That motivates me and makes my life happy. I have never received any [official] recognition despite a professional career of more than 50 years."

A few readers have requested the words of the song so they can join in at the next Venezuelan party, so here you go:

Cumpleaños Feliz (estilo Venezolano)
Ay que noche tan preciosa
es la noche de tu día
todos llenos de alegría
en esta fecha natal (natal, natal, natal)

Tus más íntimos amigos
esta noche te acompañan
te saludan y desean,
un mundo de felicidad (felicidad, felicidad)

Yo por mi parte deseo
lleno de luz este día
todos llenos de alegría
en esta fecha natal (natal, natal, natal)

Y que esta luna plateada
brinde su luz para ti (paraaaaa tiiiiiiii)
y ruego a Dios porque
pases un cumpleaños feliz

Cumpleaños feliz,
Te deseamos a ti,
Cumpleaños... [name of the birthday person],
Cumpleaños feliz!

Now you can "sopla las velas y pica la torta" (blow out the candles and cut the cake), turn up the tunes, pour out some Cuba Libres and get the party started.

Los Impala - Sound of the Swinging 60s

Los Impala, along with Los 007, produced some of the best Venezuelan pop-rock music of the swinging 60s, covering Mersey Beat and surf tracks. The band was made up of Henry Stephen on vocals, Pedro Alfonzo on piano and vocals, Edgar Quintero on guitar and vocals, Francisco Belisario, on on guitar and vocals, Nerio Quintero on bass and vocals and Omar Paduay on drums. Try and guess who did the original of this track: "La Vi Parada Ahi".

Los Amigos Invisibles - Playa Azul

Venezuela's greatest export - after oil, beauty queens and salsa star Oscar D'Leon - has to be Los Amigos Invisibles.

Now based in New York City, the invisible friends made this video during a typically harsh New York winter.

The slinky samba from their 2004 album The Venezuela Zinga Son Vol. 1 is full of nostalgia for Venezuela, old friends and the tropical heat of "Playa Azul".

The track appears on the compilation CD "The Rough Guide to Latin Lounge" that came out in September 2008, with music from Ska Cubano, Novalima, The Quantic Soul Orchestra and Anga Diaz.

To download Los Amigos Invisibles MP3 tracks click here:

To buy the CD "The Venezuelan Zinga Son, Vol. 1" click here:


To buy the new CD "Commercial" click here:



Video: Los Amigos Invisibles - Mentiras

Video: Los Amigos Invisibles - Diablo

Video: Los Amigos Invisibles - Cuchi Cuchi

Video: Max and Jason have lunch with Los Amigos Invisibles

CD Review: Venezuelan Zinga Son Vol 1 - Amigos Invisibles

CD Review: Arepa 3000 - Los Amigos Invisibles

Tambores in Chuao

This is a good introduction to Venezuelan tambores music. The two guys on the ground are playing cumaco drums made from hollowed avocado tree trunks with deer or cowhide skins. Behind them are two other drummers playing on the trunks with hard sticks called "palillos" or "laures" that give the distinctive taca-ta-taca-ta sound that drives the dancing. The singer or cantor is accompanied by a chorus, as is typical with Afro-Caribbean call and response drum music. The male dancers try and get as close as they can to the muchachitas, while the ladies spin away to avoid them. Anybody, male or female, can cut in at any time and take over. Tambores is popular in all the old plantation towns along the coast and harks back to slave days. Chuao is a historic plantation where Venezuela's finest cocoa beans are produced. It is reached by sea from Choroni .

Read the article - Chuao: In Search of World's Finest Cocoa Beans
Read the article - Choroni: Tambores, guarapita and midnight dips

Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra - Albert Hall 2007

Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra had the usually sedate audience at the Royal Albert Hall in London stomping their feet for more when they played the Proms on 19 August.

The programme included works by Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein and some Latin American classics.

For the climactic finale the orchestra added a bright splash of colour by changing into their Venezuelan-flag jackets and gave London a true taste of the mambo.

Unbelievable. The press reaction after the concert was ecstatic. Wish I’d been there.... I had to settle for BBC4.

Video: Gustavo Dudamel interviewed at the Proms in 2007

CD review: "Fiesta" Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela

To download tracks from the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's latest album "Fiesta" click here:

Panasuyo: Tierra Querida

Venezuelan singer, songwriter and producer Aureliano Mendez, better known to his fans as Panasuyo, represents a new wave of young musicians mixing traditional Venezuelan sounds with rock, pop, reggae and electronica. "Pana suyo" means "Your mate" in Venezuelan Spanish. Tierra Querida is taken from his debut album "Monte y Culebra" (literally, "Scrubland and Snakes"), a term some Venezuelans use quite dismissively to describe anywhere outside the big cities.