Andrés Jiménez (singer)

In 1999, El Jíbaro" also participated another political movement. He joined forces with salsa singer Ismael Miranda to compose the album "Son de Vieques" ("A Tune for Vieques"), and produced the CD "Raíces Puertorriqueñas" ("Puerto Rican Roots"), which features the "Singing Children" of jíbaro music. Both works won awards and were used as rallying cries for the rights of the people of Vieques.

He has participated in made-for-TV special presentations including "Somos un solo pueblo" ("We are one people") and "Al compás de un sentimiento" ("To the beat of a feeling"), produced by the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico, and the concert "Enciende la estrella de la paz" ("Light the star of peace") in 1998 which was sponsored by the Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular.

In April 1997, he received the Farándula Award for his album "Los Santos Inocentes ", considered the best Puerto Rican 1996 Christmas album. It earned him the Gold Record Award for the sale of more than fifty thousand units.

In 1973, he participated in the Youth Festival in Germany. He represented Puerto Rico in the First Latin American Folk Song (Primer Cantar Folclórico de América Latina), held in Cuba. That same year, he toured different Mexican states, sponsored by the National Institute of Fine Arts. In October, along with his new band, he performed at the Festival Homenaje al Trovador (Festival in Tribute to the Troubadour), held in the Plaza Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela. In November, he received the “Premio Encuentro por Trayectoria Artística" ("The Encounter Award for Artistic Legacy").

Andrés Jiménez Hernández, popularly known as "El Jíbaro" (born July 3, 1947 in Orocovis, Puerto Rico), is a composer and singer of traditional Puerto Rican folk music (jíbaro music) and is that music genre's best known contemporary trovador (troubadour, i.e., singer) linked to the Neofolkloric movement of the Nueva Canción (New Song).

Jiménez was born on July 3, 1947, in Gato, a barrio of Orocovis, Puerto Rico. He is the fourth of fifteen children of Juan Jiménez and Felícita Hernández. His father, a tireless farmer, taught him to love the earth and the cultivated soil passionately. Early on, his mother stirred an interest in singing, particularly by taking him to ceremonies where folk music, like the "seis chorreao" and "aguinaldos," was interpreted.