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Daniel Doroteo de los Santos Betancourt, also known as "El Jefe" and "El Inquieto Anacobero" (b. February 5, 1916, Santurce, Puerto Rico – d. November 27, 1992, Ocala, Florida) was a singer and composer of boleros, and an overall performer of multiple Caribbean music genres, such as guaracha, plena and rumba.

Contents 1 Early years 2 Santos joins Pedro Flores 3 "Linda" 4 Political activist 5 Later years 6 Postscript 7 References 8 See also 9 External links

Santos was born and raised with his three sisters in Tras Talleres, a poor section of Santurce. He attended Las Palmitas Elementary School. Although he was doing well in school his father took him out of school when he was in the fourth grade and forced him to shine shoes because of his family's poverty,

In 1924, his family immigrated to New York City looking for a better way of life. When his parents enrolled him in school, he had to start from the first grade again because he did not know enough English. Santos joined his high school's choir but he dropped out of high school in his second year and moved out of his parents' apartment.

Santos moved into a small apartment, where, one day, he started to sing "Te Quiero, Dijiste" ("You said 'I Love You'"). A member of the Trio Lirico was passing by and heard him sing, he then knocked on Santos' door. The trio member invited Daniel to join the trio and he accepted. He sang with the trio in various social events and was paid a dollar for every song that he sang.^{[citation needed]}

Santos struggled while living on his own in New York. In one occasion, he was stabbed once by a loan shark who lent him USD$52.00 and demanded payment soon after. When he recovered from the stab wound he made sure to find the loaner and hit him with a lead pipe, quote, "Fifty-two times. And I counted them!".^{[citation needed]}

In 1938, Santos was working at the Cuban Casino Cabaret in Manhattan. He did a little bit of everything, from singing to being the master of ceremonies to waiting on tables. On one occasion, he was singing "Amor Perdido" ("Love Lost"), without knowing that the composer of the song Pedro Flores was in the audience. Flores liked what he heard so much that he invited Santos to join his group "El Cuarteto Flores" which also included Myrta Silva, and would also include Pedro Ortiz Davila (aka "Davilita").^[1]

Santos recorded many songs with the Cuarteto Flores and started to gain fame. Among the songs he recorded were:

• "Perdon" ("I'm Sorry")
• "Amor" ("Love")
• "El Ultimo Adios" ("The Last Goodbye"),
• "Borracho no Vale" ("Being Drunk Doesn't Count")

In the early 1940s, many young Puerto Rican men were drafted for World War II. Santos recorded "Despedida" (My Good-bye), a farewell song written by Flores from the viewpoint of an Army recruit who had to leave behind his girlfriend and his ailing mother. The song became an instant hit. Santos recalled in an interview once that he had to hold back tears while recording the song, since his draft papers had just arrived and he would soon have to live a situation similar to what the song's lyrics described, but that a friend started mocking him at the control booth, to which he decided to curse him on the spot, trading the word mama'o (an expletive in Puerto Rican Spanish) for mamá (mother). This incident produced two mannerisms that Santos eventually adopted in his singing style: chopped delivery (almost syllable by syllable, as suggested by Flores) and stretched last vowel in the last verse of each stanza, in almost every song he recorded afterwards.

In 1942, before Santos was drafted (he would be stationed in Okinawa and South Korea), he recorded his greatest hit, "Linda", written specially for him by Flores for one of Santos' old girlfriends. The song has a thinly veiled reference to Linda's actual nationality: it mentions the Virgin of Altagracia, the spiritual patroness of the Dominican Republic.

After returning from the war, and partly because of the prejudice he experienced within the Army ranks, Daniel became active in the Puerto Rican Independence Movement and identified himself with the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party and its president Pedro Albizu Campos. His devotion for Albizu lasted all through his life, to the point of commissioning, later in his life, a full-sized statue of Albizu for his Florida estate.

With Davilita, he recorded "Patriotas" ("Patriots") and "La Lucha por la Independencia de Puerto Rico" ("The Fight for Puerto Rico's Independence"), which was adopted from one of Juan Antonio Corretjer's poems.

In the 1950s Santos traveled between Cuba and New York making presentations. He composed the song "Sierra Maestra", which Fidel Castro adopted as the official hymn of the movement of July 26 and which was always transmitted through "Radio Rebelde" (Rebel Radio) every morning. Santos continued to perform in Cuba even after Castro and his men overthrew Cuba's president Fulgencio Batista. However, when he heard that Castro was planning to train children for the military, Santos became disillusioned and left Cuba for good. During that same decade he composed many songs, including:

• "El Columpio de la Vida" ("The Swing of Life")
• "Patricia"
• "El Preso" ("The Prisoner")
• "Bello Amor" ("Beautiful Love")

Santos was invited to sing for the Sonora Matancera, which was contracted to work in "Radio Progreso". His luck improved, and he again gained fame and fortune. However, Santos spent most of his earnings on alcohol and women. He had 12 children and had been married 12 times. He made sure that he didn't marry a Puerto Rican woman, quote-unquote, "because I fear them, man!" (near the end of his life he did marry a Puerto Rican, Ana Rivera, who eventually became his companion in old age through one of his longer marriages and eventually his widow). He had also spent time in jail in Cuba, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.^[2]

During the last years of his life, Santos toured the United States and Latin-America to sell-out crowds.

Daniel Santos died on November 27, 1992, aged 76, at his ranch, "Anacobero's Ranch" in Ocala, Florida. He is buried at what is virtually Puerto Rico's national pantheon, the St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzis cemetery in Old San Juan, geographically quite close to where Albizu Campos and Pedro Flores were interred. Due to the scarcity of empty space in the cemetery, when fellow Puerto Rican singer and Santos boyhood friend Eladio Peguero (commonly known as "Yayo El Indio") later died, he was also buried in Santos' tomb.

Santos' life was the subject of one semi-autobiography, El Inquieto Anacobero: confesiones de Daniel Santos a Héctor Mújica, written as Santos told his story to Venezuelan author Héctor Mújica in 1982.

His life was also the subject of three biographical books:

• a) Vengo a decirle adiós a los muchachos (1989) - by Josean Ramos
• b) La importancia de llamarse Daniel Santos (1988) - by Luis Rafael Sánchez. Its title evokes Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest).
• c) El Inquieto Anacobero - by Salvador Garmendia

1. ^ music of Puerto Rico
2. ^ Sonora Matancera

• List of famous Puerto Ricans

• Rican Popular Culture
• A young Santos singing "Tíbiri-Tábara", backed up by the Sonora Matancera and dancing with Argentinean/Mexican actress Rosita Quintana
• Daniel Santos onstage in Venezuela with Johnny Pacheco and Oscar D'León, backed up by Pacheco's orchestra and singing "Vive como yo"
• Santos singing Pedro Flores' song, "Obsesión"
• Santos singing "Despedida"
• Santos singing "El Preso" in Colombian television