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Guy Durosier
Guy Durosier, a versatile Haitian singer and organist whom Edith Piaf once called ''the living breath of Haiti,'' died on Thursday at his home in Bothell, a suburb of Seattle. He was 68.
The cause was complications from pulmonary cancer, said his son Robert.
In a career more than 50 years long, Mr. Durosier also played the saxophone and composed music. Like most Haitian musicians, he had an eclectic style, ranging from big band sounds to Cuban music of the 50's.
His genre reached even those who left Haiti too young to have known his music firsthand and those who were born in the United States to Haitian parents. His cross-generational appeal was evident when Mr. Durosier received a standing ovation after performing at Lincoln Center in June 1998 during a fund-raiser for the Haitian-American Alliance, a community group based in Brooklyn. Reviewers said Mr. Durosier outshone younger and more popular Haitian musicians like the singer Emeline Michel and the guitarist Beethova Oba.
Born in Port-au-Prince, the capital, Mr. Durosier started performing at age 14. In 1947 he began playing the clarinet with the school band at St. Louis de Gonzague School in Port-au-Prince. A few years later, he began to play professionally when he caught the attention of Issa Saieh, the maestro of the most famous orchestra in Haiti.
Michel Martelly
Michel Joseph Martelly[1] (French pronunciation: [miʃɛl ʒɔzɛf maʁteli]; born 12 February 1961[2]) is a Haitian singer and former politician who went on to serve as the President of Haiti from May 2011 until February 2016. He is from Côte-de-fer, a commune located in the South East region of Haiti. Martelly was one of Haiti's best-known musicians for over a decade, going by the stage name Sweet Micky. For business and musical reasons, Martelly has moved a number of times between the United States and Haiti. When travelling to the United States, Martelly mostly stays in Florida. After his presidency, Martelly returned to his former band (Sweet Micky) and sung a carnival meringue entitled Bal Bannan nan (Give her the banana), a message as a response to Liliane Pierre Paul, a famous Haitian female journalist in Port-au-prince