Esteemed Mr. Formell,

I am writing to express my congratulations for your Lifetime Achievement Award from The Latin Recording Academy® and also to share some thoughts about why this is important for fans in the United States as well as your fans in Cuba and around the world. 

When you started making recordings (with Reve and later Los Van Van), it was not possible to enter a  record store in the United States and purchase your records. For many years, radio stations in the United States did not broadcast them either. However, thanks to shortwave radio (Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Rebelde), I and others like me could hear your music almost from the beginning. For those of us who were able to listen, you were responsible for nearly as much of the music of our youth as any band from the United States or Europe, and one can only wonder how many more people in the U.S. would have said the same thing if your music had also been available on our radio stations here decades ago. Unfortunately, it could not be so because of the strange and delusional belief of some in my own country that restricting access to music could somehow make the world a better place. It is my hope that this award will have a role in helping to put an indisputable end to that period. The music of Cuba has been a world treasure from Ignacio Piñeiro's times to today, and this truth remains the truth after the 1950s, including Songo, Timba etc. 

Thank you for what you have already done, and much success in the future. 

All the best, 

Bill Tilford
Chicago, Illinois
USA