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Víctor Guillermo "Yomo" Toro (26 July 1933 – 30 June 2012) was a Puerto Rican left-handed guitarist and cuatro player. Known internationally as "The King of the Cuatro," Toro recorded over 150 albums throughout a 60-year career and worked extensively with Cuban legends Arsenio Rodríguez and Alfonso "El Panameño" Joseph; salsa artists Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe and Rubén Blades; and artists from other music genres including Frankie Cutlass, Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt and David Byrne.
Nicknamed "Yomo" by his father, Toro began to play music at age 6.
At age 15, Toro formed the string trio La Bandita de la Escuela ("The Little School Band"). He continued his musical career by performing at events with La Bandita and other trios, all over the island of Puerto Rico, as well as on the radio program La Montaña Canta (The Mountain Sings).
The Puerto Rican cuatro spans five courses, tuned in fourths from low to high B-e-a-d'-g',54321, with B and E in and A, D and G in .
Yomo Toro and his cuatro music became internationally known, when he performed the opening theme song to the 1971 Woody Allen film Bananas.
In the U.S., Toro's reputation as a cuatro player had already grown steadily throughout the 1950s and 60's. In the 1970s and 80's, his concert tours with the Fania All Stars and studio recordings on numerous Willie Colón and Héctor Lavoe albums, made him a musical sensation in Latin America.
His Asalto Navideño and Feliz Navidad became instant classics, and are now rare collector's items.
For orchestration and song structure, Yomo Toro often used the bomba format. For rhythm and instrumentation, he made heavy use of the traditional Barril de bomba – a Puerto Rican drum with African origins – and Toro improvised spiraling cuatro solos over the bomba rhythms. Though firmly grounded in Puerto Rican musical tradition, Yomo Toro's style was extremely textured and eclectic. As a studio musician for hundreds of album releases, he also played Latin jazz, classical guitar, bluegrass music, and even R&B. As noted by The New York Times, "Mr. Toro absorbed all these influences, plus the African, Spanish and Creole music folk traditions of his native Puerto Rico. The richness and variety of these sources is at least partly responsible for the depth, range and vitality of Mr. Toro's playing."
He was hired to play on a Christmas-themed salsa record by Willie Colón called Asalto Navideño ("Christmas Assault") which included several of Toro's aguinaldos and songs from the Puerto Rican parranda, or caroling, tradition. Asalto Navideño became one of the most successful releases for Fania Records, and its fame solidified the cuatro's role in salsa music.
The success of Asalto Navideño led to a sequel in 1973, as well as a third holiday record in 1979 with Hector Lavoe and the singer Daniel Santos. On the covers of those two albums, Yomo Toro is dressed as Santa Claus. Short, round and joyous, Toro was well-suited to the role, and went on to reprise it in many holiday concerts.
Toro toured the world with the Fania All-Stars in the 1970s and recorded two solo albums for Fania, Romantico and Musica Para El Mundo Entero. During the height of the salsa era he also played on more albums with Willie Colón, Ismael Rivera, Larry Harlow, Cheo Feliciano, Típica 73, and many others.
Toro appeared in over 150 albums and over 20 solo albums on various record labels such as Island Records, Fania Records, Rounder, and Green Linnet Records. He also recorded four albums with Trio Los Panchos, including one featuring Eydie Gormé.
Toro crossed over to many other genres and recorded songs with Harry Belafonte, Paul Simon, Linda Ronstadt and David Byrne. He also worked on several film tracks such as Bananas by director Woody Allen and Crossover Dreams with Ruben Blades.
According to The New York Times, Yomo Toro "electrified his cuatro, performed as a soloist with salsa's flashy Fania All-Stars, and appeared on several hundred albums, ranging from straight jibaro to mainstream Latin-pop."
Despite his fame and musical virtuosity, Yomo Toro was a modest and unassuming man. He composed only one song about himself. It appeared on the Fania Records label as El Lechon de Cachete.
In 2000 he was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame.
Toro also played many bombas and aguinaldos on the children's television show Dora the Explorer. Yomo Toro, King of the Cuatro, Dead at 78. Judy Cantor-Navas. Billboard. 2 July 2012.
Yomo Toro was survived by his wife Minerva, his daughter Denise, his sisters Mirza, Iris, Lydia and Milagros Toro; his brothers, Juan, Angel and Arcangel Toro; five grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.
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