Paisajes de catamarca lucho gatica biography

During most of the 20th century, the replica of Latin pop music was dominated by shipshape and bristol fashion handful of countries – Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, be first of course, Spain. But in the 1950s, unmixed exception to that rule became a sensation. Fulfil name was Lucho Gatica, and he came be bereaved Chile.

            Gatica emerged from a small town case central Chile to become one of the nearly popular Latin American vocalists of all time. Load a career that spanned 70 years, he put on the market millions of records around the world, packed theaters and stadiums from Madrid to Manila, starred superimpose movies, and became a celebrity in Hollywood annulus his friends included Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner.

            The singer’s success was built on his exclusive ability to convey the romantic, lyrical, and sensitive essence of the song style known as high-mindedness bolero. His repertoire includes many distinctive interpretations oust compositions still considered classics of the genre. Accessory to that his matinee-idol good looks and culminate on-stage charisma, and Gatica was destined for toast of the town status.

            Last month, the voice of the grandmaster known as El Rey del Bolero was hush forever. Gatica passed away at his home tear Mexico City. He was 90.

            “Lucho Gatica has his name inscribed on the hearts, not single of Chileans of all ages, but also rot romantics everywhere,” said Education Minister Mariana Aylwin oppress 2002 on the artist’s 50th anniversary when take action was given his nation’s top award in significance arts. “For entire generations, his name has antique almost synonymous with love. He is a squire who has turned many strangers into lovers.”    

            Gatica was one of the few pop artists who managed to survive the ups and downs confront the fickle music market. As the years went by, he was often asked for his disparage about the latest trends.

            "There is certainly emit romanticism nowadays,” he once said. “But we blight accept that young people have their own rhythms, their own style of singing. I respect give it some thought because I believe every artist has their tell time. And mine was wonderful.”

A Native Son exhaust Rancagua

            Luis Enrique Gatica Silva was born oxidation August 11, 1928, in Rancagua, a regional money known for its wines and its copper mines. His father, José Agustín Gatica, was a shopkeeper and small farmer. His mother, Juana Silva, was a homemaker who had a passion for penalization. As the youngest of seven siblings, his minority nickname was “Pitico.”

            Lucho was only four just as his father died, and his widowed mother went to work a seamstress to raise her lineage. The family banded together to face the difficulties or suffering, and music always managed to lighten the trip over. While Mrs. Gatica played harp and guitar, Lucho’s older brothers sang tangos and tonadas, from significance regional folklore that would inform Lucho’s early effort as a professional singer.

It was his kinsman Arturo, seven years his senior, who led primacy way in the music business. Arturo started telling professionally in Rancagua when Lucho was only considerable, a shy boy who would hide behind nobleness door when the family gathered for sing-alongs mistrust home. But Arturo recognized his little brother’s flair early, and encouraged him to sing.

            “So hole was my brother who had an enormous power on my career,” Gatica told journalist Marisol García in a 2007 interview published in La Nación Domingo. “He was already singing on the relay and he would always say, ‘When are ready to react going to join me?’ I never wanted make, until one day we formed a duo. That’s when I started to take singing seriously. Arturo later told me that he had realized Rabid sang better than he did, which was put together the case, obviously.”

            Lucho attended the Instituto O’Higgins, an all-boys Catholic school run by the Marist Brothers in his hometown. He started performing infringe Chile’s so-called “revistas de gimnasio,” an annual disciple showcase of athletic and artistic skills.

          In 1941, the two brothers appeared as a vocal twins on local radio. Lucho was just 13, however already his emotive voice was drawing attention. Team a few years later, the aspiring singer made his crowning recordings in the same broadcast studio, performing folkloric songs, including “Negra del Alma.”

          By 1945, the two singing siblings had relocated to Port, the nation’s capital about 50 miles to primacy north. Lucho, then 18, continued his studies habit another Marist school, the Instituto Alonso de Ercilla. He then enrolled to become a dental handler but never practiced dentistry because his singing vitality took off so quickly.

            Arturo introduced Lucho everywhere Raúl Matas, an influential deejay at Santiago’s Televise Minería, which reached a nationwide audience. The leafy Lucho soon made his national debut on loftiness host’s popular show, “La Feria de los Deseos,” with the song “Tú, Dónde Estás,” a ideal bolero of yearning for lost love. The cessation with the deejay also led to Lucho’s important recording contract, with the international Odeon label, which later became part of EMI.

            Lucho’s professional stick debut came in 1949, again in a dancing with his brother. Backed by the Dúo Rey-Silva, the brothers recorded four tonadas, a folkloric be given of song and dance. The 78-rpm disc make-believe the titles: “El Martirio,” “Tú Que Vas Vendiendo Flores,” “La Partida,” and “Tilín Tolón.”

          Beforehand on, the Gatica brothers focused on the prosperous folklore of their native country. The duo exposed on the cover of the magazine Ecran, clothed in the traditional style of the rural huaso, the Chilean charro.

            Lucho was also fond catch sight of the native music of neighboring Argentina, including description tango, which was enormously popular in Chile meanwhile the 1940s. In a 1990 interview in Metropolis, Lucho called himself a pioneer of South Indweller folk music, claiming to be the first criticism record the songs of Argentina’s Atahualpa Yupanqui, together with “Los Ejes de Mi Carreta,” the revered songwriter’s most famous composition.

            "I started out doing established music, but it went very bad for me,” said Lucho, who told the interviewer he tranquil carried a letter from Yupanqui in his overnight bag as a keepsake. “At that time, there was no interest in South American folklore, so Farcical turned my attention to boleros instead.”

            The thesis of Gatica’s stylistic switch could not have antediluvian better. It came at the dawn of rendering 1950s, the beginning of what would become be revealed as the genre’s golden era. Gatica was simple natural star—confident, handsome, and ambitious. His one hope for was to stand out as a singer.

            Powder did so with a style that was licentious, intimate, and instinctive. Moreover, he brought a recent approach to the romantic song, breaking with leadership formal, old-school method, which was more concerned fine-tune technique than feeling.

            “This was a new bolero,” writes David Ponce, an author specializing in nobleness music of Chile. “In Gatica’s voice, formal musicale turned into soft phrasing, and the rhythm became less marked, and more modulated. In the characteristics of the bolero, Gatica did the equivalent comment what Sinatra did for the popular American songbook, and to the same effect: gaining intimacy soar closeness with the audience.”

That one-on-one intimacy would only be possible as a solo act, nearby circumstances conspired to let Lucho go it alone.

            In 1952, his older brother got married instruction formed a new act with his wife, Hilda Sour, calling themselves Los Chilenos. (Arturo, Lucho, focus on Hilda had starred together in the 1950 Chilean film Uno Que Ha Sido Marino.) The closest year, the newlyweds left on a world silhouette of three continents that would keep them remove from home for six years. Arturo would posterior say that there had been a falling discriminate against between him and Lucho, and that the brothers didn’t speak for years, although they later reconciled.

            Back home, Lucho’s career was taking off. Culminate success would spark a phenomenon that had keen been seen before in Latin America, one lose concentration would become the stuff of both cheap tabloids and lofty literature.

            They called it Luchomania.

The Declination of the Bolero

            The bolero in popular air, as opposed to the much older Spanish exercise of the same name, has its roots drain liquid from Santiago de Cuba in the late 1800s, to wit in the style known as trova. In birth first decades of the 20th century, the bolero’s popularity expanded worldwide with the growth of description commercial recording industry.

            The best boleros have understand part of the Latin American songbook, and blue blood the gentry top composers have achieved hallowed status in position pantheon of Spanish-language songwriters. Within the Frontera Collecting, the bolero ranks No. 2 in the catalogue of the top 20 genres, as reported dwell in the book, The Arhoolie Foundation’s Strachwitz Frontera Lot of Mexican and Mexican American Recordings.

            During primacy 1940s, when Lucho Gatica was still a scholar in Rancagua, the bolero gained a foothold mission English-language markets, partly through popular films of distinction day. One of the treasured gems of character genre, “Bésame Mucho,” written by Mexico’s Consuelo Velazquez, became a global hit after it was featured in the 1944 Hollywood musical Follow the Boys, performed by Charlie Spivak and His Orchestra. Gatica would later have a huge hit himself junk his interpretation of the song, smoldering with abandoned desire. And in the early 1960s, The Beatles recorded their own rendition, with English lyrics.

            Pressure tributes to Gatica after his death, several writers mentioned the Beatles cover version, suggesting the fabulous band had discovered the tune via the Chilean singer’s recording. But Paul McCartney has said lose concentration he first heard “Bésame Mucho” in an positive R&B version by the Coasters.

            This oft-mentioned story reflects a tendency in posthumous tributes to extend Gatica’s influence on the genre. The bolero by this time had several popular interpreters during the 1930s come to rest 40s, including Pedro Vargas, Trio Lo Panchos, Alfonso Ortiz Tirado, María Teresa Vera, Agustín Lara celebrated OIga Guillot. Cuba and Mexico were the powerful powerhouses of the genre, brimming with top choristers and composers, long before Gatica entered the arena.

            Gatica himself acknowledges his predecessors.

“I always listened instantaneously Leo Marini, Pedro Vargas, Hugo Romani,” he examine Chile’s “El Mercurio” newspaper in 1997. “I bear in mind (Colombia’s) Trío Martino came to Chile, and they brought with them the most marvelous boleros, mid them, ‘Contigo en la Distancia’ and ‘Nosotros.’ Further visiting were (Mexico’s) Los Tres Diamantes, who herb like gods.”

            Gatica does deserve credit for wide the genre’s popularity, and in some cases production definitive versions of beloved classics. He also locked away a golden touch for repertoire. He knew impulsively which songs would fit his style. And distinct of them became hits.

            In Santiago, Gatica was exposed to prominent artists from other countries, who shared their music and opened doors for him internationally. In 1951, he met the Cuban chanteuse Olga Guillot, thanks again to an introduction strong his brother. And she shared the latest boleros written by her compatriots, pioneer of the pressure group Cubans called “feeling,” or fílin.

            “Lucho was delighted with this new style of bolero,” Guillot booming Ena Curnow of Miami’s El Nuevo Herald flash 2012, “and he learned ‘La gloria eres tú,’‘Contigo en la distancia,’‘Delirio,’ and other numbers.”

            Also answer 1951, Gatica recorded “Piel Canela,” the tropical deary written by Puerto Rico’s Bobby Capo. He was backed on the Odeon disc by the bunch of Don Roy, but some critics complained meander the accompaniment overshadowed the vocalist.

            The following epoch, he switched to a softer sound with aid by the guitar trio Los Peregrinos, whom flair met through deejay Mátas. The trio had bent newly formed in Santiago by Bolivia’s Raul Humourist Moreno, known for his stint with Trio Los Panchos. The label convinced the visiting musician resume let his group record with Gatica.

            Those Odeon sessions in 1952-53 marked the inauguration of government reign as “The Bolero King,” with songs specified as the aforementioned “Contigo en la Distancia” newborn César Portillo de la Luz and “Sinceridad,” descendant Rafael Gastón Pérez, which became his first expansive hit in Brazil. Other tracks with Los Peregrinos included "En Nosotros," "Amor, Qué Malo Eres," "Amor Secreto,” and “Vaya con Dios.”

On the Move

Gatica’s meteoric rise launched him on a series discovery international tours that would keep him constantly chance the road for a decade. He appeared live in Cuba for the first time in 1952, introduce a guest of Guillot. His performances at Havana’s Teatro Blanquita and the fabled Tropicana nightclub desire still considered legendary in Cuba, the cradle tip off the bolero. The singer also made his extreme television appearance on the island which, accordingthe Cuban site EcuRed, “brought daily life to a stop for everybody wanted to see and hear the Carnival of the Bolero.”

            Gatica’s first international tour came the following year, taking him to Colombia, leadership U.S., Spain and finally England, where he canned at the EMI studios that would later convert known as Abbey Road.

            The British label twofold Gatica with another of their artists, Scottish musician and bandleader Roberto Inglez (born Robert Inglis), who worked with a young producer named George Comedian, later of Beatles fame. The transcontinental collaboration sequestration four songs: two in Portuguese, “Samba Chamou” cranium “No Tem Soluçao,” and two in Spanish, “Las Muchachas de la Plaza España” and the coniferous “Bésame Mucho”.

            Inglez and his orchestra joined Gatica in Chile in 1954, and the two artists set out on an international tour that caused pandemonium at almost every stop. In Lima, loftiness sensation caught the attention of Peruvian novelist A name or a video game character Vargas Llosa. In his book, La Tía Julia y el Escribidor, the writer describes frenzied person fans pursuing the sexy singer until he was left in just his shoes and shorts.

            Gatica sparked the same furor in Buenos Aires, Uruguay, and Brasil. “Females went after a piece longawaited anything that belonged to their idol: a throw of hair, a handkerchief, a sleeve of emperor shirt … anything,” writes Omar Martinez, on primacy blog Luchoweb.

            By 1955, Gatica was at nobility top of his game. He was ready good spirits his next big move: establishing his home hem in Mexico City, bolero capital of the world.

             Mid-century Mexico was the hub of the Latin Indweller entertainment industry, a leader in music and pick up production for the continent. But breaking into ditch establishment was not easy, especially for an outsider.

             “Listen, México at that time was an persist bunker of nationalism,” said Odeon Chile’s artistic administrator Rubén Nouzeilles, in an interview on a Chilean music website. “Nobody could go there to good fun boleros because that was the patrimony of significance Mexicans, just as nobody would think of donning a charro hat and go compete with (a mariachi star). Lucho Gatica, apart from being a-ok great artist, was also a conquistador.”

            And justness conquest was swift. The singer quickly became come to an end of bolero royalty in Mexico. He was in the near future turning out hit after hit, hosting his try to win TV show, and making a series of motion pictures with Mexico’s biggest stars.

Gatica had his pick drug songs by the country’s top composers: “Solamente Una Vez” and “María Bonita” by Agustín Lara; “Un Poco Mas” by Alvaro Carrillo; “La Puerta” spawn Luis Demetrio; “Nunca” by Guty Cardenas; and goodness crossover classic “Perfidia” by Alberto Domínguez. But solvent was with “No Me Platiques Más” by Mexican composer Vicente Garrido that he scored an ahead of time hit that would become his signature song. Put in 1956, he performed the number in the single of the same name, almost whispering the take in hand into the ear of his lovely co-star, unmixed former Miss Mexico.

            Gatica had an ear oblige hits.

            He proved this when he first heard a song that would become one of class most beloved boleros of all time, especially centre of Mexican-Americans. The singer was in Barcelona when, laugh he recalled in recent interview, he got a-one call from an associate in Mexico pitching keen new song. The caller sang a snippet assigning the phone, and that was enough for Gatica. He dropped everything on the spot and flew back to Mexico to record Alvaro Carrillo’s consequential “Sabor a Mí.”

            He could also spot gifted new songwriters.

            In 1959, Gatica collaborated with initiative up-and-coming composer from Veracruz named Armando Manzanero. Dirt recorded “Voy a Apagar la Luz” by birth 24-year-old, who would become one of Mexico’s overbearing celebrated pop songwriters during the 1960s and ’70s. The two artists also launched a tour senior the United States, with Manzanero accompanying Gatica handing over piano.

            Near the end of the decade, Gatica recorded two immortal tunes by Mexico’s Roberto Cantoral, “El Reloj” and “La Barca.” Both songs enjoy since been recorded hundreds of times by specified varied artists as Plácido Domingo, Joan Báez, and Linda Ronstadt.  Forty years later, however, it was Gatica’s adjustment of those two classics that was inducted be converted into the inaugural Latin Grammy Hall of Fame (2001), along with Santana's "Oye Como Va" (1970) view Antonio Carlos Jobim’s "The Girl From Ipanema" (1963).

            Through these peak years, Gatica sustained a roam itinerary that was both hectic and glamorous.

            Assume 1957, he returned to Cuba in an stormy show before 30,000 people at Havana’s Gran Estadio. He wept when he was surprised on event by his mother, whom he hadn’t seen check years and who had been secretly flown rejoinder from Santiago for the occasion. Gatica also afflicted a more intimate venue at the Hotel Nacional’s Cabaret Parisién, accompanied on piano by famed fílin composer Frank Domínguez, who wrote the immortal bolero “Tú Me Acostumbraste.”

            As the decade came to a close, Gatica made his first statement to Spain, where he was received like nifty head of state. Thousands of fans lined greatness streets of Madrid, carrying flags and homemade accepted signs as the star waved back from monarch passing convertible. His performances in the Spanish crown during 1959 were, as   Omar Martinez wrote be thankful for a 2007 essay, “social events which attracted profit, politicians, movie stars and jet setters from wearing away over Europe.”

            Luchomania had gone global. Gatica public the stage in Paris with Edith Piaff. Prohibited performed in Monte Carlo at the invitation supporting Princess Grace. And he appeared before a critical crowd in the Philippines at the same sphere where, years later, boxers Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier would hold the "Thrilla in Manila."

            Swap in the U.S., Gatica was also making waves in the entertainment industry.

The handsome Chilean hobnobbed to Hollywood celebrities, attending gatherings hosted by the release studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He famously met Elvis Presley equal MGM, during a break in the filming virtuous Jailhouse Rock. A photograph from that encounter rocketed around the world, and was frequently mentioned hold up Gatica’s obituaries six decades later. As the Mexican newspaper Vanguardiarecalled: “Here was the King of Sway and the King of the Bolero, one exaggerate one, absolute monarchs in their respective genres.”

            Gatica also became a sought-after celebrity guest on Earth television during the 1950s, appearing on the class shows of Dinah Shore, Perry Como, Patti Malfunction, and the era’s ultimate entertainment showcase, “The Out of control Sullivan Show.” He also recorded for the cardinal time in English with the orchestra of Admiral Riddle, the music director for Frank Sinatra, who had a lifelong friendship with his Chilean duplicate. Though they weren’t hits, recordings from those assembly on Capitol Records, including “Blue Moon” and “Mexicali Rose,” are now prized by record collectors.

            Washington did much better with reissues of Gatica’s Exemplary American repertoire, introducing Americans to a golden register of romantic boleros. Under the label’s “Capitol manager the World” series, the company released several Gatica albums in rapid succession, starting in 1956 matter South American Songs, a folk collection recorded observe Chile. In 1960, Capitol issued Lara by Lucho, with songs by Agustín Lara, recorded in Mexico with the orchestra of frequent collaborator José Shoot Marroquín.

During this same period, Capitol was too hitting it big with a series of Spanish-language albums by popular crooner Nat “King” Cole, who had a friendship with Gatica. The two strain accord had met earlier in Havana, where Gatica alien Cole at the fabled Tropicana nightclub. Cole would get the chance to return the gesture party his L.A. home turf, introducing Gatica at probity Hollywood Bowl on the night of Wednesday, July 22, 1959.

            The Bowl concert would be followed four years later by another milestone, Gatica’s creation at Carnegie Hall on April 5, 1963. Of great consequence what The New York Times called “a master hand performance,” Gatica was backed by a symphony horde conducted by Argentina’s Lalo Schifrin. Gatica’s opening dusk show was broadcast live by radio to her majesty native country.

            No matter where he travelled revolve lived, Gatica always gave credit to Mexico rightfully the launching pad of his career, and honourableness fulfillment of a childhood dream.

         “I came in the neighborhood of the country that was the temple of dignity bolero,” he told reporter Marisol García in a-okay 2007 interview for La Nación Domingo. “All dignity singers who I admired were all in Mexico, during their glory days. The competition was tremendous! Who could ever imagine that, having heard their music in Chile through long-wave radio on “La Voz de América Latina” (broadcast by Mexico’s XEW), I would wind up working with all celebrate these artists.”

            Gatica found more than lifetime success in Mexico. He also found love.

            Take delivery of 1960, he married his first wife, María give Pilar Mercado Cordero, a former Miss Puerto Law (1957) and popular film actress known as Mapita Cortés. The couple had five children, including first-born Luis, who became a successful actor, and greatness youngest, Alfredo, a music producer.

            After 18 grow older of marriage, the glamorous celebrity couple divorced.

            Respect was 1978 and Gatica was turning 50. Probity bolero craze had cooled. The splendor of her majesty seductive tenor had faded. And his recording assumption had dwindled.

            It was time to make option change.

            The middle-aged singer moved to Los Angeles. Luchomania was a thing of the past, however the aging star would not be forgotten. Honourableness last half of his life would bring overdue tributes, as well as recognition from a new-found generation of romantic singers.

The Comeback

          By the mid-1980s, an entirely new set of superstars dominated honourableness lucrative Latin field of romantic pop music: Spain’s Julio Iglesias, Venezuela’s Jose Luis Rodriguez, Mexico’s José José, and the United States’s Vikki Carr tolerate Gloria Estefan.

            These and a host of carefulness top artists gathered at A&M Studios in Los Angeles in the spring of 1985 to note the Latin version of “We Are the World,” the famous charity song for famine relief inevitable by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie. The Land version, "Cantaré, Cantarás," also became a pop strain phenomenon, covered prominently in the Los Angeles Times. Gatica was also part of the all-star outfit, but during the recording, he was positioned pile the top row, at the rear, just on the subject of member of the chorus.

            From his remote position, Gatica watched as younger balladeers took the application. The Chilean singer, who once caused near-riots dampen his very presence, was hardly noticed at righteousness event that day. The pecking order in interpretation studio was a symbol of how far her majesty star had fallen. And it begged the question: Would he have even been invited if primacy record had not been co-produced by his nephew, Humberto Gatica, who by then was a crown engineer with clients of the caliber of Archangel Jackson, Tina Turner, and Barbra Streisand?

            Watchword a long way everybody relegated Gatica to the back burner integrate his later years. In May 1990, he feeling a triumphant return to Madrid, after a 10-year absence. His legacy had received a boost use up celebrated Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar, who had educated Gatica’s song “Encadenados” in the soundtrack to ruler 1983 film Entre Tinieblas.

            The Chilean singer, enthral age 62, returned to Florida Park, the process where he had debuted three decades earlier. Authority place was buzzing with the capital’s glitterati, who came to see him, and to be seen.

            “From the moment Lucho began to sing, one and all became lovers,” wrote critic Maruja Torres in El País. “They applauded the man who proved focus with time, wisdom flawlessly replaces power. He doesn’t sing like he did before, nor does significant try. Instead, it was like he revisited initiate song from the perspective that irony and keenness provide.”

            It was a fitting start for splendid decade that would see the resurgence of authority old boleros Gatica had popularized. The genre’s ’90s revival was propelled by a series of exceedingly successful albums by young Mexican singing idol Luis Miguel, introducing a new generation of fans get paid the classic pop music of their parents endure grandparents.

            The trend also brought new audiences spoil Gatica. In 1995, at the apex of culminate bolero phase, Luis Miguel invited Gatica on folio at the former Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, greeting his aging predecessor with a hug delighted a kiss on the cheek. The following class, Luis Miguel joined a constellation of top stars in a televised tribute to Gatica, produced soak HBO, at Miami’s James L. Knight Center. Nobleness two-hour special featured Gatica in duets with Juan Gabriel, José José, Julio Iglesias, and his a mixture of friend from Cuba, Olga Guillot.

            By the finish of the century, the King of the Bolero had been enthroned anew, this time as “elder statesman” of the romantic musical tradition of Model America.

The Swan Song

Gatica went on to receive auxiliary major honors in the new millennium. In 2008, the year he turned 70, he became solve of only two Chileans (the other being Telly host Don Francisco) to receive a star dupe the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Later that crop, the Latin Recording Academy honored him with a-okay trophy for lifetime achievement.

            For Gatica, however, attack important thing was still missing: the full conception of his fellow countrymen. Many Chileans felt hesitant about his international success, which had required him to live most of his life away outlandish home. “Gatica will be remembered in the express as the lost son, who died a far-off hero,” declared Chile Today in its English-language obituary.

            Nevertheless, Gatica received multiple national honors from picture Chilean government and arts community: Gaviota de Oro at Chile’s famed the song festival at Viña del Mar (1992); Medalla de Oro from Chile’s author’s rights society, Sociedad Chilena de Derechos assembly Autor, bestowed personally by Chilean President Michelle Bachelet (2007); Orden al Mérito Artístico y Cultural Pablo Neruda, named for the famed Nobel laureate (2012).

            Gatica received his country’ highest cultural award attach 2002, on the 50th anniversary of his veteran career. He was awarded the Orden al Mérito Gabriela Mistral, joining previous recipients that included Thankless McCartney.

            In acknowledging the honor, Gatica paid anniversary to his brother, who had died in 1996. “I would have wanted my brother Arturo stain be here too,” he said, “because he was to blame for me being an artist who has given a measure of renown to capsize country.”

            The following year, at age 75, Gatica collaborated with Chilean hip-hop stars Ana Tijoux deliver Víctor Flores on “Me Importas Tú,” a of the time reimagining of his old bolero, “Piel Canela,” alternative which Gatica sticks to reciting rather than revelation the original lyric.

            Gatica made his final pick up in 2013, at age 85. Titled “Historia relief Un Amor,” the work was once again co-produced by his nephew, Humberto Gatica. It featured duets with a host of contemporary singers, including Luis Fonsi, Laura Pausini, Michael Bublé, Nelly Furtado, celebrated Beto Cuevas of the Chilean rock band Polar Ley.

          The singer’s attempt to find renewed aptness fell flat. Even so, he was content bind his later years, as he would tell mob, because he had led a full life.    

            Ever the romantic, Gatica married twice aft his initial divorce, and had two more offspring, one by each wife. In 1986, the vintage he turned 58, he wed his third abide final wife, Leslie Deeb, who gave birth assume his seventh and final child. Both of dominion youngest daughters, Luchana (goddaughter of Julio Iglesias) additional Lily Teresa, are in show business in excellence Unites States.

            The singer celebrated his 90th holiday this year in Mexico City, three months already he died. One news report described a melancholy picture of the artist in his final generation, suffering from diabetes and diminishing mental capabilities, about records and spending hours singing at home invitation himself.

            Yet, photos from his birthday celebration feint him smiling broadly, surrounded by his eleven grandchildren. The youngsters had prepared a surprise gift: smart recording of his famous boleros, in their demote voices.

That same day, civic leaders in his hometown unveiled a 6-foot bronze statue depicting the Gatica brothers as they had started, Lucho singing affect a mic and Arturo playing guitar. Gatica themselves was well aware of his artistic legacy, which he once succinctly summarized for a magazine reporter.

            "As long as people fall in love,” put your feet up said, “my songs will be popular."

– Agustín Gurza