He was born in the province of Matanzas. As a young child, Rodr guez was blinded when a horse kicked him in the head.
Later, he became a musician, and eventually became one of the most renowned bandleaders on the island. His music emphasized the Afro-Cuban rhythm as well as the melodic lead of the tres, which he played.
Arsenio wasn't the first in Cuba to call his group a conjunto (literally, "combined"); neither was Arsenio the first to add a piano to the son septet.
Arsenio had a brother, whom he was very fond of - Kike - and whom he employed to help him get around, but the expenses that he incurred as a consequence came to about as much as Arsenio's share of the contract.
When Arsenio's band got to the montuno, the bongosero set down his bongó, picked up the campana, and whacked it with a thick stick at the mouth of the bell in a steady 1-2-3-4 (filling in the upbeats on the closed end of the bell, in a formula which respects the clave).
Arsenio was born near Union de Reyes in the Province of Matanzas.
Arsenio Rodríguez was the creator of the son montuno style, a prolific composer and lyricist, and the father of the mambo.
In ArsenioRodriguez and the Transnational Flows of Latin Popular Music (Publication Date: August 31, 2006), ethnomusicologist David F. García provides a critical biography of this important twentieth-century Latin musician who was dubbed "The Marvelous Blind One" by a Cuban DJ.
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