Frank Emilio Flynn

When Cuban pianist Francisco Emilio Flynn Rodriguez was born in 1921, forceps damaged his eyesight during delivery, ultimately resulting in total blindness by his late teens. At the age of 13, Flynn participated in and won an amateur contest, starting his career shortly thereafter as part of a danzon orchestra (playing a type of ballroom music that preceded both the mambo and mambo ). Flynn continued to broaden his musical skills by studying at a specialty school run by Cuba's National Association For the Blind (a school that Flynn would later serve as president from 1978-1981...