Atahualpa Yupanqui

Atahualpa Yupanqui, artistic name of Héctor Roberto Chavero (b. Juan A. de la Peña, Pergamino, January 31, 1908-Nîmes, France; 23 May 1992), was an Argentine singer-songwriter, guitarist, poet and writer.

He is widely considered the most important Argentine musician in the history of folklore. In 1986 France decorated him as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Musical Letters.

Biography

Early years and family

He was born on January 31, 1908 in Campo de la Cruz (of the Segoburo family, with his Basque great-uncles) two kilometers from Juan A. de la Peña, in the Pergamino district, located in the interior of the Province of Buenos Aires. At the age of two, his father (a railway employee) was appointed to the Peña Station, so his early childhood was spent in Peña, first in Campo de la Cruz and then in a house opposite the town station, where he lived to be 9 years old. This house in 2001 was declared a historical heritage of the city of Pergamino and currently the municipality is managing its purchase to make a cultural center in memory of Atahualpa Yupanqui. Later Atahualpa and his family moved to Agustín Roca until 1917 when they moved to Tucumán.

His father, José Demetrio Chavero, was Argentine, a native of Monte Redondo, in the Argentine province of Santiago del Estero, with Quechua ancestors. Her mother, Higinia Carmen Haran, was also Argentine, with Argentinean and Spanish Basque ancestors. His early childhood was spent in Juan A. de la Peña, where he lived until he was 9 years old. Later his family moved to Agustín Roca, since his father worked on the railway as a telegraph operator and was also engaged in horse training. He initially studied violin with Father Rosáenz, the town priest. Later he learned to play the guitar in the city of Junín with the soloist Bautista Almirón, who would be his only teacher. He initially lived in Junín in Almirón's house; later he returned to the town of Roca and traveled 16 km on horseback to take lessons in the city. With Almirón, Roberto Chavero discovered the music of Sor, Albéniz, Granados and Tárrega, and also the transcriptions for guitar of works by Schubert, Liszt, Beethoven, Bach and Schumann.

Recognition and beginnings in music

In 1917 with his family he spent a vacation in the province of Tucumán, and there he learned a new landscape and a new music, with his own instruments, such as the bass drum and the Indian harp, and his own rhythms, such as the zamba, among others. The early death of his father prematurely made him head of the family. He was an improvised school teacher, then a typographer, chronicler and musician. He played tennis, boxed and became a journalist. At the age of 19, he composed his song "Camino del indio". He knew Jujuy, the Calchaquíes valleys and the south of Bolivia. At the age of 20, he arrived in the city of Urdinarrain, Entre Ríos, with his guitar; there his favorite place was & # 34; La Amarilla & # 34;, the perfect setting to shell out numbers and milongas. In that place he worked as a laborer for Casa Goldaracena.

Yupanqui was going to form his own language with which he managed to capture paths, landscapes, stories of daily life. "The days of my childhood passed from astonishment to astonishment, from revelation to revelation," he once recalled.

In 1931, he married his cousin María Alicia Martínez, who had a son born in 1923 from a previous partner. She had not done well in the city of Buenos Aires, so they went to the province of Entre Ríos, and in Urdinarrain his first daughter, Alma Alicia Chavero, was born. Some time later they settled in Tala.

Entry into politics and exile abroad

In January 1932, he participated in the failed Yrigoyenista revolutionary attempt by the Kennedy brothers, in La Paz (Entre Ríos province), in which Colonel Gregorio Pomar and the writer Arturo Jauretche were also involved, who reflected the fact in his gaucho poem El Paso de los Libres.

After this defeat he had to go into exile. He had to take refuge for a while in Montevideo (Uruguay), and then in other towns in the eastern interior and southern Brazil. Meanwhile, his wife had returned to Junín (interior of the province of Buenos Aires), where on January 11, 1933, his second son, Atahualpa Roberto Chavero, was born. Finally, in 1936 in Rosario (Santa Fe province) Lila Amancay Chavero was born. The following year, he separated from his wife. She and her four children returned to Junín.

Return to Argentina, censorship and return to France

In 1934 he re-entered Argentina through Entre Ríos and settled in Rosario. In 1935 he settled in Raco, a hamlet about 40 km northwest of the town of Tafí Viejo (Tucumán province). He briefly passed through the City of Buenos Aires ―where various performers began to popularize his songs― to perform on the radio. He later toured Santiago del Estero, to return to Raco for a few months in 1936. He made an incursion through Catamarca, Salta and Jujuy. He later visited the highlands again in search of testimonies of the old native cultures. He returned to the Calchaquíes valleys, traveled the paths of Jujuy on the back of a mule and lived for a time in Cochangasta (a village two kilometers from the city of La Rioja).

In Tucumán, in 1942, he met the pianist and composer Nenette Pepín Fitzpatrick (1908-1990), with whom he had a relationship for 48 years.

Since divorce did not exist in Argentina, they had to get married via Montevideo. With Nenette he had her last son, Roberto Chavero, who was the only one who showed himself as such, perhaps influenced by her, who took the reins of her in the couple. She, who signed as Pablo del Cerro, is the co-author of many of his songs: «Chacarera de las piedras», «El alazán», «El arriero va», «Eleuterio Galván», «Guitarra dímelo tú», «Indiecito dormido », «Payo Solá», «Without a horse and in Montiel», «I want a black horse», among others.

Because of his affiliation with the Communist Party, Yupanqui suffered censorship during the presidency of Juan Domingo Perón. He was arrested and imprisoned several times. In this regard, Yupanqui has said:

In the time of Perón I was unable to work in Argentina for several years... They accused me of everything, until the crime next week. Since that forgetable time I have the index of the left hand broken. Once again they put on my hand a typewriter and then sat upstairs, others jumped. They were looking to undo my hand but they didn't notice a detail: they hurt my right hand and I, to play the guitar, am left-handed. Still today, several years after that, there are tones like the Yeah. It's less than hard for me to do them. I can execute them because I use the office, the maña; but they really cost me.

Atahualpa Yupanqui

When Chavero left for France in 1949, he was already using the pseudonym Atahualpa Yupanqui. The singer Edith Piaf invited him to perform in Paris on July 7, 1950. He immediately signed a contract with Chant du Monde, the recording company that released his first LP in Europe, A Miner I Am, which won the first prize for best record from the Charles Cros Academy, which included 350 participants from all continents in the International Folklore Competition. Subsequently, he traveled extensively in Europe.

Buenos Aires, musical success and consecration

In 1952, he returned to the Argentine capital, where he broke his relationship with the Communist Party, which made it easier for him to arrange radio performances. While he and his wife Nenette built their house in Cerro Colorado (Córdoba), Yupanqui toured the country. He scored the films Horizontes de piedra (1956), based on his book Cerro Bayo , and Zafra (1959), also acting in them.

Atahualpa at the Cosquín Festival.

Recognition of Yupanqui's ethnographic work became widespread during the 1960s, and artists such as Mercedes Sosa, Alberto Cortez, and Jorge Cafrune recorded his compositions and made him popular with younger musicians, who refer to him as Don Ata.

Yupanqui alternated between his homes in Buenos Aires and Cerro Colorado. During 1963 and 1964, he toured Colombia, Japan, Morocco, Egypt, Israel, and Italy. In 1967 he toured Spain, finally settling in Paris. He periodically returned to Argentina ―in the hands of various dictatorships―. In 1973 he appeared in the film Argentinísima II . But his visits became less frequent when the civic-military dictatorship (1976-1983) of Jorge Rafael Videla came to power in March 1976.

With the return of democracy, in the mid-1980s, he presented several works at the famous La Capilla café concert and gallery, located at Suipacha 842, in the city of Buenos Aires. In 1985 he obtained the Kónex prize for brilliance as the greatest figure in the history of Argentine popular music.In 1986, the French Government decorated him as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters. In 1987 he returned to Argentina to receive a tribute from the National University of Tucumán. In 1989 he had to go to Buenos Aires to overcome a heart condition, despite which, in January 1990, he participated in the Cosquín Festival. However, a few days later, Yupanqui traveled to Paris to fulfill an artistic contract.

On November 14, 1990, his wife, Nenette Pepín Fitzpatrick, died in Buenos Aires.

Death

In 1992, Yupanqui returned to France to perform in the city of Nîmes, where he fell ill and died on May 23. By his express wish, his remains were repatriated and rest in Cerro Colorado, under a European oak.

Compositions

His compositions are part of the repertoire of countless artists, both in Argentina and in different parts of the world, such as:

Most Known Songs

Late A of the acetate in 78 RPM Caminito del indio. Odeon-El Mangruyo 00001 (1936).

Of the 325 officially registered songs of his authorship, the following can be cited:

Discography

Xilography in wood, by Sergio Ardohain (1995).

78 RPM pasta records

Albums

Books

Atahualpa Yupanqui taking mate.

• 1941: Stone alone.
• 1946: Cerro Bayo.
• 1947: Buenos Aires.
• 1948: Land that walks.
• 1954: Guitar.
• 1965: The song of the wind.
• 1965: The persecuted payer.
• 1971: The Sacrifice of Tupac Amaru.
• 1977: From the carob to the cherry.
• 1989: The sacred word.
• 1992: The foreman.

Filmography

Performer

• 1956: Stone horizons.
• 1959: Zafra.
• 1965: A Summer Night Trip.
• 1965: Cosquin, love and folklore, directed by Delfor María Beccaglia
• 1971: Very good..
• 1973: Argentina II.
• 1981: Look how cute my country is..

Author

• 1956: Stone horizons.

Music

• 1956: Stone horizons.
• 1959: Zafra.

Musical themes

• 1952: Indiano Torrente.
• 1956: The crazy satellite.