Agustín Lara

Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso of the Sacred Heart of Jesús Lara and Aguirre del Pino , (Tlacotalpan, October 30, 1897-City of Mexico, November 6, 1970), known Simply as Agustín Lara , he was a Mexican singer, composer and actor. Inside the music, he specialized in Bolero's genre. He was also known with the nicknames of the poet musician and the gold of gold .

Biography

Childhood

There are no certainties on the date or the place of birth. The musician claimed to have been born in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, on October 1, 1900. Thus appears in several of his biographies, and that is the year recorded in his tomb located in the roundabout of illustrious people.

However, the journalist Jaime Almeida assured, after an investigation carried out in 1970, that the composer was really born in Mexico City, on October 30, 1897, based on the christening faith and the birth certificate that He found in the Civil Registry: «Lara was born in a place called El Callejón Puente del Cuervo number 16, which now corresponds to the second street of the Republic of Colombia, in the historic center, to some streets of the Abelardo Rodríguez market. In fact there is still the house where the Lara Aguirre family lived. » That is, Agustín Lara took three years. But it is also true that being very small the family moved to Tlacotalpan, where he spent his childhood.

Others accept this date, but understand that the real place of birth was not Mexico City but in Tlatlauquitepec, Puebla. The family lived there, but as the father of the future artist had to spend a doctor's exam, they moved to the capital of Mexico and there took the opportunity to register their son in the Civil Registry, thirteen days after being born, 12 of November 1897. According to the author, all the people he interviewed in Tlatlauquitepec ensure that Lara was born in that place.

In the book my girlfriend sadness the authors accept the date and place of the birth certificate and ask themselves: «In a neighborhood of that street lived the doctor Joaquín M. Lara and his wife María Aguirre , parents of the composer. Mr. Lara told the Civil Registry Judge, the Wenceslado Briceño, that his son was born in that house. Neither Agustín's father nor his mother nor witnesses Carlos María Padilla and Jacinto Lara had any need to lie about this fact. If Agustín was born in Tlacotalpan only thirteen days before his act, as he assured, why his parents did not set him in this document? »

Other versions, much less credible, claim that he was born in Spain or Suchitepéquez, Guatemala.

His father, Joaquín Mario Lara, was originally from a small town in the Sierra Norte de Puebla called Tlatlauquitepec and his mother, María Aguirre and Del Pino, originally from Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico. In 1906 his family moved to Mexico City. His father left the family. Agustín lived with an aunt named Refugio, where he met the harmonium, took music classes and at 7 years he already demonstrated a remarkable ability to play the piano. He studied at the Fournier Lyceum, but had to leave his studies to support his home. From the age of 12 he worked as a pianist in nightclubs, telling his mother that he performed night telegraphy shifts. He entered the Military College and in 1917 he joined the revolutionary movement. In an interview Agustín Lara commented on the following: " I went to the revolution, I arrived in Captain Second, I have two leg wounds. I was in the General State of General Samuel Fernández who was intimate friend of General Villa, I was one of his spoiled by Chamaco, they told me " the cricket ". I was always skinny, always, but I believe that as little was more (...), I entered as a soldier when I was 15 years old, to the Northern Division, I distributed the youth impulse in what I guessed a word that was called, Freedom, and in addition to the whips of my father who already did not allow me to live at home ".

Carrera

Augustine Lara in 1941.

The first song he registered in his name was the prisoner , which he composed in 1926. In September 1930 he began his career of resounding successes on the radio, through the program called the Intimate time of Agustín Lara . At the same time he acted and composed songs for various films, including Holy (1931) , inspired by Federico Gamboa's novel. Shortly thereafter he participated in the radio with the program the blue hour at the XEW broadcast, sharing with performers such as Toña La Negra and Pedro Vargas, also directing the orchestra the Son Marabú . During 1932 he appeared at the Politeama Theater in Mexico City. In 1933 he faced the failure of his first tour in Cuba, due to the changing political climate that prevailed on the island. He made various tours of South America and new compositions would increase his fame as only once (composed in Buenos Aires and dedicated to José Mojica), Veracruz , guitar Guajira /Palmera , tropicana , sinner , among others.

In 1953 he received a tribute from President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines at the Palace of Fine Arts. In Spain his figure was well known in the early 1940s, he even received various honors and decorations worldwide, such as the one he would receive from the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who in 1965 gave him a beautiful house in Granada in Granada (Spain), thanks to the songs dedicated to various cities such as Toledo , Granada , Sevilla , Valencia , Madrid , Murcia among others. The surprising thing is that Agustín Lara did not know Spain when he composed these songs. Over time, in 1997 the song " Granada " He ended up becoming the official anthem of this city, by unanimous agreement of his City Council, in version adapted by Professor Luis Megías Castilla.

Personal life

was a bullfighting amateur. He met the Spanish bullfighter Manuel Rodríguez & # 34; Manolete & # 34; When he opened the Plaza de Toros México, to Manuel Benítez " El Cordobés " who gave him a task, and the Mexican bullfighter Silverio Pérez to whom he composed a pasodoble. It should also be noted that in the monumental bullring of Mexico City there is currently, only here instead of registration " my poor broken hands " (Excerpt from the lyrics of his song " poor of me "), He has the phrase: " I do not change for a throne my sun barrier " (extract of the pasodoble that composed Silverio Pérez).

CICATRIZ

During the 1920s he worked as a pianist in bars, coffees and silent film rooms. At that time, she composed the song Marucha , written in honor of one of his first loves. This song ended up causing her difficulties, on one occasion to have a fight with another woman. In 1927 I was already working on cabarets. That year, a chorist named Estrella attacked him with a broken bottle; As a result, Agustín Lara was marked with a scar on his face.

It temporarily moved to Puebla until 1929, due to the events of the Cristero War. He himself narrated, through the radio, the circumstances in which he met Father Miguel Agustín Pro Juárez: in the police command, he witnessed his execution, which was executed without any trial or relief of evidence, however, it was not Until 1929 who began working for the tenor Juan Arvizu, who discovered him and announced his compositions.

controversies

In 1937 he was accused of fraud and plagiarism by Luis Moreno and Music Publishing Co. for trying to register before the Department of Literary Property the song I would like to tell you .

Relationships and marriages

He was famous for his loves with various women such as Esther Rivas Elorriaga in 1917, Angelina Bruscheta Carral in 1928, Clarita Martínez in 1949, Yolanda Santacruz Gasca " Yiyi " In 1953, Rocío Durán in 1964. But the most relevant of his love life was the marriage to María Félix held in 1945. For her he composed several songs such as María Bonita , that love and Night of Ronda , among others. His home of Lomas was a centers of gatherings for artists and writers who used to meet often, and more in the time of María Félix. In the cinema he acted in films such as Novillero (1936) and Foqueta Lost (1949).

Death

As of 1968, he began a rapid decline that would take him to the end of his life, he even had a fall in his house, an accident that caused him the fracture of the pelvis, which aggravated his health given his advanced age. He entered a coma on November 3, 1970 due to stroke, died on November 6, 1970 and in presidential order he was buried in the roundabout of illustrious people of the Pantheon of Dolores in Mexico City.

Tomb of Augustine Lara in the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres (Mexico).

Legacy

• In 1985, Angels Mastretta published his book Arráncame la vida, title inspired by the famous song of the Flaco de Oro.
• In 1999, Joaquín Sabina published in his album 19 days and 500 nights the song 'De purísima y oro', which, according to Sabina's own description, co-author with A. Oliver, "homenajea al Madrid de Agustín Lara".
• In the year 2003, in Buenos Aires, Crazy for Lara, musical show by Kado Kostzer and Sergio García Ramírez, which gathers, in a fictional story, the most representative songs of the great composer.
• Only once: all the passion and melancholy in the life of Agustín Lara is a novel biography of Lara written by Francisco Haghenbeck and published in 2007.
• In 2008 the film Arráncame la vida, directed by Roberto Snider, was released, which is based on the novel written by Mastretta.
• In 2017, Natalia Lafourcade in his project “Musas (A tribute to Latin American folklore in Mano de Los Macorinos vol. 1), includes the song “I saw you pass” by this author.

• In 2018, during the celebration of Sant Jordi carried out by the students of Catalan, of the National School of Linguistic Languages and Translation of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, on April 26, Adam Romero interpreted "Amor dels meus amors" the translation into Catalan of "Love of My Loves" by the teacher Agustín Lara.

Filmography

• Revista Musical (1934) [cortometraje]
• Novillero (1936) [cortometraje]
• Pecadora (1947)
• Lady temptation (1947)
• Reveal (1948)
• Cottage (1949)
• Lost (1950)
• Women in my life (1949)
• The woman I love (1950)
• My champion (1951)
• Women sacrificed (the remembrance of the other) (1952)
• Why don't you love me anymore? (1953)
• Singing is born love (1953)
• The faraone (1955)
• The naked virtue (1955)
• The Three Lola Loves (1956)
• The Rock'n Roll Chills (1956) with Pedro Vargas
• Crime theatre (1956)
• The three Bohemians (1956)
• My parents get divorced /Silver weddings (1957)
• Immortal Bolero (1958)
• The Life of Agustín Lara (1958)
• Woman in condominium (1958)
• Music of always (1958)