When guitarist/producer Ry Cooder returned to Cuba in 2001, he looked up Manuel Galban, a guitarist he calls "the last twanging man in Cuba." Mr. Galban, perhaps the island's greatest guitar player, is also something of an anomaly. He mastered the solid-body electric guitar in the 1950s, a time when few electric guitars were being imported from the U.S. And his musical sensibilities were nurtured during an era when Havana enthusiastically absorbed such distinctly American influences as doo-wop -- a trend that ended abruptly when Fidel Castro took power in 1959. Mr. Cooder enjoyed the biggest success of his career...