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“Almost two decades after the release of the original, Grammy winning album, the romance of the Buena Vista Social Club™ continues with Lost & Found, a collection of previously unreleased tracks, some recorded at the first legendary sessions in Havana with producer Ry Cooder and others during the extraordinarily rich outpouring of music that followed.

The original Buena Vista Social Club™ album was recorded for World Circuit Records by Ry Cooder and Nick Gold over seven days in Havana in 1996, bringing together many of the great names of the golden age of Cuban music in the 1950s, several of whom were coaxed out of retirement for the sessions. The Album became a surprise international best-seller and the most successful album in the history of Cuban music.

At the time, nobody had any idea that the record was merely the start of a musical phenomenon. In the years that followed the Buena Vista veterans toured the world to ecstatic audiences and were the subject of a celebrated feature film directed by Wim Wenders. Further acclaimed recordings followed, including solo releases by the singers Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo, virtuoso pianist Rubén González and bassist Cachaíto López and a celebratory live album recorded at a triumphant concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Buena Vista Social Club had become a household name. A core band featuring several of the original musicians continue to sell out shows world-wide as Orquesta Buena Vista Social Club. They embark on their farewell ‘Adios’ tour in 2015.

“Over the years we were often asked what unreleased material was left in the vaults,” says World Circuit’s Nick Gold. “We knew of some gems, favourites amongst the musicians, but we were always too busy working on the next project to go back and see what else we had. When we eventually found the time, we were astonished at how much wonderful music there was.”

All the studio tracks were recorded for World Circuit at the Egrem studio in Havana during the rich and prolific period of creativity that followed the recording of the original album and stretched into the early 2000s. Spiced with live recordings from the same fertile period, there’s a tremendous and sometimes surprising variety to the material heard on Lost & Found. But there is a unifying thread built around a core collective of legendary musicians expressing an esprit de corps which everyone who was ever enchanted by Buena Vista Social Club™ will recognise and enjoy.” - Buena Vista Social Club

“The result is Lost And Found, a compilation of studio recordings (from the original Buena Vista Social Club sessions made at Havana's Egrem Studios in 1996, and from a string of dates through the late 1990s and early 2000s) and live cuts from throughout the artists' touring career. These tracks have all been taken out of the vault and dusted off only for this occasion, but fans of the Buena Vista artists' earlier projects will find more than enough gems here. They include "Macusa," featuring guitarists and singers Eliades Ochoa and Compay Segundo; the cool, trancelike Afro-Cuban jazz of "Black Chicken 37" with Díaz and López; smoky-voiced singer Omara Portuondo in "Tiene Sabor" and the 1930s Cuban chestnut "Lágrimas Negras"; the blazing horns in "Mami Me Gusto," featuring Ibrahim Ferrer; and the razor-sharp dance rhythms in "Guajira En F," featuring Jesus "Aguaje" Ramos, one of Buena Vista's younger performers (now 63). If it turns out that this is the year we do say a final goodbye to the Buena Vista collective, Lost And Found provides a gorgeous reminder of what made it so famous to begin with — and what we'll all be missing.”- NPR

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