Music Legend Is Gone, But His Beat Goes On

BY ALBOR RUIZ

Thursday, November 12, 1998

HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE made their way on Tuesday to a Corona funeral home for the wake of the Colombian composer, musician and singer Luis Carlos Meyer.
Today, Meyer's body will be flown back to his native country, where he will be buried in Barranquilla, his hometown. He died in the Bronx on Nov. 7 of renal cancer and old age. He was 82.
"That's what he wanted, to be buried in Colombia," says Elba Medina, a Puerto Rican nurse assistant who took care of him for the last five years.
A Mass will be held tomorrow at the Barranquilla cathedral. That city's dignitaries as well as prominent culture and music personalities will be present to pay their respects.
The Orquesta Sinfonica of Barranquilla will escort him the man so many musicians called maestro to his final resting place playing "Micaela," "El Gallo Tuerto," "El Hijo de mi Mujer," a few of his many lively compositions.
"Those songs are still heard in Latin America," says Javier Castano, a reporter from the Spanish-language newspaper El Diario-La Prensa. "They brought him fame."
So many honors, so much concern. . . . It is ironic.
In the 1940s, '50s and '60s, the heyday of his popularity, Meyer was internationally known as El Rey del Porro, the king of a kind of music heavily influenced by African rhythms. But he would have died anonymously if not for Medina and Castano.
For five years, the man who proudly gave to the world the music from the Colombian Atlantic coast languished penniless and forgotten at the Laconia Nursing Home. With no family and no friends, no one visited him, no one knew who he was.
Occasionally, the frail old man, his blue eyes lighting up, would talk in Spanish about long-gone times of music, applause, fans and women.
"He kept telling me," says Medina, one of the few Spanish-speakers at Laconia, "that he used to be 'somebody.' "
Few paid attention. Those who did had no idea what he was talking about. Yet, Medina thought there was more to Meyer's words than the ravings of an old man. Last year she decided to investigate.
"I didn't want him to die like that," Medina said. She called Castano, also a Colombian.
The reporter was able to verify Meyer's identity, and wrote several moving articles in October and November 1997, revealing his sad condition.
Meyer's life changed after that. People began to visit him, he became animated, and sang again for the first time in many years. He had regained his identity.
When Castano played for him a tape of his music, Meyer smiled and, holding Medina's hand, said: "I hadn't heard my voice in 10 years."
Castano, who takes his profession very seriously, could not help becoming part of the story. He contacted everybody he could think of, including the Colombian consul; his friends at El Tiempo, the biggest Colombian newspaper; Rep. Jose Serrano, a Bronx congressman.
On July 16, with the help of many people, he was able to grant Meyer some of his final wishes. That day he traveled with the composer to Colombia, where the old man was received as a favorite son. On July 17, some of Colombia's best musicians played in honor of El Rey del Porro at Barranquilla's Amira de la Rosa theater.
On July 21, Meyer returned to the Bronx, the maestro again, no longer forgotten.
Two hours before the musician's death, the reporter told him to go in peace, that his songs were beautiful, that history would remember him because the Colombian Ministry of Culture had published a book with his music and his life, written by Castano.
"You were in Barranquilla," Castano told him. Then kissed his forehead and told him: "We love you."
A man had been lost and had been found. At the time of his death, Meyer's words to the compassionate nurse, who took a liking to the lonely old man, were no longer an inaudible whisper: He was somebody.