Singer-guitarist Compay Segundo [ tickets ], who was 90 years old when he gained fame outside his native Cuba thanks to the documentary and GRAMMY^®-winning recording "Buena Vista Social Club," died shortly before midnight on Sunday (7/13).

After several months of poor health, Segundo--whose real name was Máximo Francisco Repilado Munoz--died of kidney failure at his home in Havana, according to published reports. He was 95.

Segundo, the inventor of a seven-string guitar dubbed the armónico, was a well-known musician before Fidel Castro took power. He worked as a cigar roller and in other menial jobs through the '60s and '70s, but he began playing with Eliades Ochoa [ tickets ]--another artist who later took part in the "Buena Vista Social Club" sessions--in the late '80s. He visited Washington, DC, to appear with Ochoa's band in 1989.

The native of Siboney, in eastern Cuba, began recording again in the mid-'90s, when he was nearing his 90th birthday.

Worldwide fame came to Segundo after the 1997 release of "Buena Vista Social Club." The Wim Wenders film and album--which sold a million copies in the U.S.--captured a recording session organized by American producer Ry Cooder [ tickets ] to spotlight classic, pre-Revolutionary Cuban nightclub music.

Segundo was forced to cancel a planned series of summer concerts in Europe when he became ill with a severe kidney infection earlier this year.