Cri-Cri – Mexico’s most famous children’s composer

Every time my granddaughter Violeta comes to visit I play her a Cri Cri song that I used to listen as a child and show her one of the CriCri videos on youtube.  She loves them and I hope that parents or grandparents will remember these whimsical songs and buy them for their little ones.   But who is Cri Cri?  Known as el Grillito Cantor (the singing cricket) he was Mexico’s foremost children’s composer and was born in the city of Orizaba, Veracruz. This is a little piece from my book Zarela’s Veracruz (Hougton Mifflin 2001.)

–

  The Singing Cricket

I have a personal reason for cherishing the city of Orizaba -– “Cri-Cri.”  That’s a name to make millions of faces light up in Mexico.  The late Cri-Cri may be the region’s best-loved gift to the nation.  His real name was Francisco Gabilondo Soler, and in my family we are proud to call ourselves his cousins, though distant ones.  (My mother is a Gabilondo.)

Cri-Cri was born in Orizaba in 1907 and had the sort of miscellaneous education that makes a person interested in everything.  In the 1930s he became on of Mexico’s most popular early radio personalities, with a program called “El Grillito Cantor” (“The Little Singing Cricket) –- hence his nickname –- Cri-Cri.  In a radio and recording career spanning more than twenty-five years he played and sang many delightful children’s songs of his own composition.  There is nothing to compare him with in the United States unless you imagine an amalgam of Mother Goose and Mister Rogers and “Sesame Street” and Dr. Seuss along with Rogers and Hart.  Just say the name “Cri-Cri” and watch a smile break out over the face of any Mexican friend

The songs of Cri-Cri combine infectious tunes, whimsical lyrics, and magically evocative effects.  Mexican little ones everywhere adore them –- and not just little ones!  Not long ago I was staying at a hotel in Poza Rica when suddenly a party of guests who were celebrating someone’s birthday in the lounge, to the sounds of a maddening karaoke track, changed their tune (literally).  Somebody started plinking on a piano and they all broke out into an impromptu concert.  It was Cri-Cri’s songs that they were warbling in the chorus!  I wanted to laugh for pleasure. I felt at one with every kid who has ever chirped the alphabet song or “El Ratón Vaquero” (“The Cowboy Mouse”) along with The Singing Cricket.

I am happy to say that Orizaba has honored this contribution to the national happiness by creating a small memorial at the housewhere he was born and establishing a children’s recreation center, the Parque Infantíl Francisco Gabilondo Soler.

Links;
You tube La Marcha de las Letras

Los cochinitos (The three little pigs)

El Raton Vaquero (The Cowboy Mouse)

La Patita (The duckling)