After earning a bachelor’s degree in business administration, he tried to find work as a bell boy. But when he failed to get the job, he ended up singing folk songs in Manila nightclubs. It was during this period that he recorded his signature version of “The Way We Were,” among other popular American songs. Mr. Puno made American music his own by adding bawdy lyrics and banter in Tagalog. “Rico, Valera and Hajji were three of the biggest stars of the glory days of Filipino music,” the music columnist Baby A. Gil wrote in The Philippine Star in 2002.

Source: New York Times October 30, 2018 09:20 UTC