The wife of famed Cuban musician Dámaso Pérez Prado -- King of the Mambo -- died Sunday of complications from cancer surgery. Evangelina Reyes de Pérez, a longtime Miami Beach resident, was 86.
As the wife of a young bandleader and composer who helped usher in the new Latin sound that took America by storm in the 1950s -- Evangelina played a crucial role: She was her husband's No. 1 fan and critic. She would listen to his enormous and constant musical output and give her opinion, which he respected.
''Music was a compulsion with my father and he was always trying out sounds and rhythms and asking my mother what she thought,'' Julia Pérez, the couple's daughter, said.
Evangelina told her daughter how, as a young girl, she would listen to a neighborhood boy in Matánzas, Cuba, practice classical music on the piano. It was her husband-to-be.
The couple wed in 1941, just as Pérez Prado was launching his musical career, playing the piano and organ with bands and orchestras featured in Cuba's popular casinos.
Hungry for fame, Pérez Prado left Cuba in 1948 to start his own orchestra in Mexico, where many Cuban artists of the time were trying their luck. Evangelina soon followed.
An American bandleader vacationing in Mexico changed the couple's life. Sonny Burke heard Pérez Prado's Que Rico El Mambo. Burke recorded his own version of the song back in the United States and called it Mambo Jambo Man.
The single was a hit and Pérez Prado decided to tour the United States. His appearances at The Palladium in New York sold out and he soon began recording for RCA Victor.
Evangelina and Julia accompanied him to New York, where they lived for several years before moving to Miami Beach, long after the mambo craze faded.
The 1991 film, The Mambo Kings, though not specifically about Pérez Prado, is a composite of Latin musicians like him, including Xavier Cugat, Desi Arnaz and Tito Puente, who found fame in the United States during Mambomania.
Evangelina lived to see her husband's music experience a brief resurgence. In 1999, a Pérez Prado signature piece, Mambo No. 5, was recorded in the United Kingdom by Lou Bega. For the second time, it climbed up the U.S. Billboard chart to No. 1.
Years after her husband's death, friends say the walls of Evangelina's home remained covered with photographs and memorabilia of her husband's musical career.
Viewing will be from 6 p.m. to midnight Thursday at Caballero-Rivero-Woodlawn, 3344 SW Eighth St., Miami. A Mass will be at 9:50 a.m. Friday at Gesu Catholic Church, 118 NE Second St. Burial will follow at Woodlawn North, 3260 SW Eighth St.
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