'Ibrahim Ferrer takes Lazarus with him wherever he goes. Showing me a short black stick with a carved head, he tells me that it has protected him for many years.
"An African woman gave it to my mother," he says. "It always goes with me."
Back in Havana, he honours another Lazarus figure who stands like a Child of Prague in a domestic shrine. In one of the most memorable scenes in Wim Wenders's documentary, The Buena Vista Social Club, Ferrer is seen venerating his protector with gifts of candles, honey, perfume, flowers and rum.
"I like rum," he says, "so I figure he does too." The Lazarus stick is important to Ferrer because it links him directly to the mother he lost when he was only 12 years old. His father was already dead and, because he had no brothers and sisters, he was suddenly orphaned and alone. If asked to explain who he is, his answer is simple. He is "the natural son" of Aurelia Ferrer and he comes from Santiago de Cuba. He'll neglect to tell you that he is also a septuagenarian superstar, but he most certainly is that too. As chief crooner of The Buena Vista Club, he is now almost as famous as Fidel - and a much better singer.
"Well, I didn't have the opportunity to study music on a formal level," he says. "The first music I started to hear was tango, particularly Carlos Gardel. I know he came from Argentina, but I started singing it a lot. But after that I got interested in my own music - son and bolero, typical Cuban music. And the bolero was from Santiago. I was 13 then; it was 1941."
To suggest that he was born to sing is tempting. It sounds fanciful, but it seems that Ferrer was literally delivered during a social club dance. It is equally tempting to labour the influence of the biblical Lazarus, given the way his career has been transformed since the recording of The Buena Vista Social Club album back in 1996. The release was a huge success and it reminded everyone, not least the people whose shoes he had just been shining, that Ferrer was one of Cuba's great singers. For many years he had been a forgotten man - "dumped", as he puts it - a victim of changing fashions. For him, and for other singers of the out-of-date bolero, it had been a time of shining shoes, selling lottery tickets and doing whatever it took to feed their families.
"For a time, after the triumph of the revolution, the bolero went out of fashion," Ferrer says. "It wasn't heard that much and the influence of the salsa started to emerge. It started to invade the music and the young people forgot about the bolero and got interested in outside influences.
"But now people who are involved in the bolero have become successful again, and one of the reasons is because they have managed to penetrate it and get to the heart if it. Yes, for a time I couldn't sing the bolero because it just wasn't popular. But now I just throw myself into it - for the love of the music."
Many of the Buena Vista musicians first came together as part of The Afro-Cuban All-Stars, led by Juan de Marcos, a younger musician who wanted to pay tribute to the older pre-revolutionary music and get young and old to play together. The arrival of Ry Cooder brought his own talents and global attention to the subsequent Buena Vista project - and the Wenders film sealed it. Suddenly a non-mainstream recording became a massive hit and before long these 1940s and 1950s Cuban sounds were as ubiquitous as David Gray.
The downside, however, has been that audiences abroad now expect Cuban music to sound a certain way - the old way. Anything progressive poses aural difficulties simply because it doesn't sound like RubΘn Gonzβlez or Ferrer, and this is a real worry for some of the younger musicians. After all, Gonzβlez is in his late 80s, Ferrer in his mid-70s and so it is more important than ever that that the preoccupations of the younger musicians are given a fair chance.
Not that Ferrer himself was necessarily stuck in pre-revolution mode. He was very interested in the Cuban music of the 1960s, most notably Los Zafiros, a doo-wop and rock 'n' roll influenced group who could count The Beatles among their fans.
On his World Circuit solo album, Ferrer recorded an old Los Zafiros hit, Herido de Sombras, and on this current tour he has been joined on stage by the twangy Los Zafiros guitar player, Manuel Galban.
"I was still a bit young," laughs Ferrer. "But yes, that music did interest me. We heard it a lot. I heard Elvis Presley a lot, but I preferred the music of tap. And I danced a lot. I don't know how good I was at it, but I liked to dance like Fred Astaire!"
When RubΘn Gonzβlez played at Whelan's in Wexford Street back in 1997, Ferrer was there too. He stood at the side of the stage and broke hearts with his shy smile and his smooth voice singing songs like Perfidia to a truly gobsmacked audience. There are those who still don't believe that that Whelan's show ever happened - most of the Buena Vista Social Club huddled on that tiny stage - but it did. A few weeks later, they were just about the hottest ticket on the planet and nobody would ever get quite so close to Ferrer again.
The story of his re-emergence is typical of the other "rediscovered" musicians in The Buena Vista Social Club. Ry Cooder was in town trying to track down as many of the old brigade as he could and Juan de Marcos went off in search of the singer. He called at Ferrer's house but he wasn't home; he was out shining shoes. When de Marcos finally found him, Ferrer at first declined the invitation to sing - but de Marcos insisted. Warily, the "retired" singer wiped the polish off his hands and headed for the studios of Egrem, Cuba's only recording company.
When he arrived, a lot of his old friends were already there and, as he walked in, RubΘn Gonzβlez began to play Ferrer's big hit, Candela. Ferrer began singing, Cooder began recording and, over the next six days, The Buena Vista Social Club CD was made. Soon after that, Ferrer was back in studio to record The Buena Vista Social Club Presents Ibrahim Ferrer, a solo album featuring many of the same musicians.
Ferrer is a very happy man, singing all over the world. And for such a gentle, almost timid person, he is a remarkable showman, all singing and all dancing. He is genuinely enjoying the unexpected twist in his life and it shows.
As the talk turns to Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby, I offer him a rum. He declines with a laugh. There's a show to do later and he's going for a nap.
The Buena Vista Social Club presents Ibrahim Ferrer at the Point Theatre, Dublin on Monday