To the Singer Manolo González Mena

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Art · Subcategory: Sculpture · Year: 2011 · Authors: Fernando García-Ramos

In the Cabo-Llanos area, located in a small roundabout, we find this bust in tribute to the singer and timple player Manolo Mena, made in 2011 by the sculptor Fernando García-Ramos and donated by Artistasenred.

José Manuel González Mena, known as Manolo Mena, was born in 1952 in Barranco Grande, when this neighbourhood still formed part of the municipality of El Rosario, before its cession to Santa Cruz in 1972. Mena, nicknamed El Majuelo or La Estrella, was linked from a very young age to Canarian folk and popular music. In 1975 he joined Los Sabandeños, achieving magnificent successes as a solo singer and timple player. Along with the group, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Government of the Canary Islands in 1995, the Canarias Prize for Popular Culture in 1997 and the Gold Medal of the Island of Tenerife in 2006. Manolo Mena died in February 2009 due to a pulmonary disease, immediately becoming one of the most remembered figures of Canarian folklore for his great voice and enormous feeling when singing.

The bust that remembers him stands on a stone column, where a metal plaque contains the following legend by the poet, psychiatrist, narrator and intellectual Carlos Pinto Grote: 

It does not matter if I die

If the timple goes with me

 

There is another artistic work in Santa Cruz in homage to Manolo Mena. It is a mural made on a wall of a building located in Barranco Grande, the birthplace of the renowned singer and timple player.

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