SPINETTA
SPINETTA
Genres: Rock Argentino, rock, argentina, singer-songwriter, Spinetta
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About SPINETTA
Luis Alberto Spinetta, also known as El Flaco Spinetta (January 23, 1950 - February 8, 2012), was an Argentine musician. He was one of the most influential rock musicians of Latin America, and together with Charly García is considered the father of Argentinean rock. He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in the residential neighbourhood of Belgrano. Since he was a kid he listened to all kinds of music: folklore and tango, and a little bit later, rock. As with almost every other rocker of his generation, The Beatles would change his life. His father, Luis Santiago Spinetta, was an amateur tango singer who formed a group with guitarists and sang on some radio stations under the pseudonyms Luis Martínez Solar or Carlos Omar. He wrote the lyrics and music for the song "Hombre de luz," included on his last album, Un mañana (2008). Influenced by this, Luis Alberto began singing tangos from a very young age, and by the age of four, his family, especially his uncles, encouraged him to sing at family gatherings. The influence of tango would be evident throughout the musician's work. In addition to his father, Spinetta attributed a significant influence on his musical taste to his uncles. Three of them worked at the Columbia record label, giving him access to a wide variety of musical expressions at a time when records were considerably expensive. He attended primary school at the elementary school around the corner from his house, at the corner of Congreso and Montañeses streets. He entered first grade in 1956, just as rock and roll was exploding worldwide, thanks to Elvis Presley and—especially in Argentina—Bill Haley, through the film *Rock Around the Clock*, released in Argentina in January 1957, and Haley's visit to the country in 1958. But simultaneously, Argentina was experiencing the so-called "folklore boom," a musical renewal inspired by traditional rhythms, which brought folk music to the forefront of popularity. Spinetta began spontaneously composing songs from a very young age, even before learning to play an instrument. His father recounts that among them, he composed a hymn to Sarmiento. He took his first steps with the guitar in the last years of primary school. His first guitar was lent to him "indefinitely" by José "Machín" Gomezza, a neighbor and celebrated figure at the River Plate Club, and he received his first lessons from Dionisio Visoná, a guitarist who had accompanied his father.8 These would be his only guitar lessons, as he would soon become a self-taught musician. He entered high school in 1963 and graduated in 1967. Spinetta recounted several times that his artistic debut occurred in 1964, in a television contest on the program Escala Musical, on Channel 13. However, his father mentions that that same year he also sang on a children's program called La Pandilla One and Two (later renamed Pandilla Uanantú), which aired on Channel 9 between March and May of 1964. In any case, for his television appearances during the Escala Musical contest, he performed two songs: the bolero "En una forma total" by Javier Solís and "Sabor a nada" by Palito Ortega, who was then at the height of his popularity with the Club del Clan. The singer reached the final and lost to a group of women called Las Medias Negras, who enjoyed some success with the type of pop-beat music embodied by the Club del Clan and the Nueva Ola movement in the early 1960s. Like millions of young people around the world, Luis Alberto was completely transformed by The Beatles' musical sensibility. 1964 was the year of Beatlemania, and the first thing he did with the money he won in the Escala Musical contest was buy the album Beatles for Sale, which the Liverpool group released in London near the end of the year.13 During this period, he was already regularly composing zambas and rock songs in English and even Spanish, something quite unusual in Spanish-speaking countries at that time. Two songs from 1965 that would later become part of his repertoire are "Barro tal vez" and "Plegaria para un niño dormido." The first, a "rocked" zamba in Spanish (a "Beatles song," as he used to say), was a precursor to the "national rock" that would explode two years later with Los Gatos, and it would be included on the album Kamikaze (1982). The second song expresses the poetic sensibility that would characterize his work and was included on his first album with Almendra. In 1965, Spinetta became involved almost simultaneously with two English-language rock bands in his neighborhood: Los Larkins and Los Sbirros. Los Larkins was led by Rodolfo García, the future drummer of Almendra, a young man four years older than Spinetta. Although he lived in the same neighborhood, he attended a public technical school and worked in a mechanic's shop, setting him apart socially from the other group. Los Sbirros was a band of students from the school Luis Alberto attended, led by Edelmiro Molinari, who was already known for his electric guitar skills. The band also included Emilio del Guercio and his brother Ángel. Luis started out in Los Larkins, but at one point he played in both groups, gradually bringing them closer together. Spinetta was attending high school at the Catholic school San Román, near his home. Spinetta and Del Guercio were classmates and formed a close friendship, sharing rebellious streaks, musical and artistic tastes, and the publication of a fledgling magazine called La Costra Degenerada (The Degenerate Scab). They even formed a duo called Bundlemen, a parallel to Los Larkins and Los Sbirros. They mainly performed Beatles songs, but also their own material, such as "Vergüenza" (Shame) and "Escándalo en la familia" (Scandal in the Family), a song dedicated to Che Guevara (Spinetta thought Che was a kind of "hyper-Beatle"), and a musical show they titled Homenaje al ácido lisérgico (Homage to Lysergic Acid). Their intention was to scandalize and shake up the rigid Catholic and conservative framework imposed on them by the school. Los Larkins underwent changes in their lineup and name, first to Los Masters and then to Los Mods. Under this name, they recorded an acetate in 1966 with two songs in English: "Faces and Things" and "Free," written by Guido Meda and Apócrifo, the latter being the pseudonym Spinetta chose to sign those early tracks. Little by little, Los Mods and Los Sbirros merged, eventually forming a quintet comprised of Spinetta (vocals), Rodolfo García (drums), Emilio del Guercio (bass), Edelmiro Molinari (guitar), and Santiago "Chago" Novoa (keyboards). It was late 1966, Luis Alberto was not yet 17, and the foundations of Almendra were in place. The group that would form Almendra was ready in early 1967, but Rodolfo García was called up for military service. This delayed the band's formation by a year, precisely during that crucial year in which "La Balsa" by Los Gatos, an original rock song sung in Spanish and composed by Litto Nebbia and Tanguito, became a massive hit and marked the beginning of a new musical style that would be known in Argentina as "rock nacional" (national rock). 1967, 1968, and 1969 were years of great cultural transformations in Argentina and around the world, establishing youth as a distinct social group: the Summer of Love that marked the birth of the hippie movement, the assassination of Che Guevara in Bolivia, the May '68 protests in France, and the Cordobazo uprising. In this context, the tendencies already emerging in the adolescent Spinetta—which coincided with those of other young Argentinians embarked on similar quests—began to germinate: to draw on the avant-garde of tango and folk music to create a type of rock with a local flavor, sung in Spanish. This constituted a cultural rupture of enormous proportions because the prevailing aesthetic standards of the time did not accept the possibility of rock having an autonomous expression in the Spanish language. In 1968, Spinetta and Del Guercio enrolled in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Buenos Aires and later studied fine arts at the Manuel Belgrano School. They also joined a Peronist resistance group against the military dictatorship then in power, called JAEN, which a few years later would become part of the Montoneros guerrilla organization. The band's activities led them to abandon active militancy, although Del Guercio remained connected to left-wing Peronist groups. In March of '68, García was dismissed from the band, and the group began rehearsing daily. Novoa, the keyboardist, simply stopped attending rehearsals, and the quintet was finally reduced to the quartet that would go down in history: Luis Alberto Spinetta (lead vocals and guitar), Rodolfo García (drums and vocals), Emilio del Guercio (bass and vocals), and Edelmiro Molinari (lead guitar and vocals). In mid-1968, Ricardo Kleiman, producer of the radio program Modart en la noche, hugely popular among young people at the time, went to see one of the band's rehearsals, where they played "Where Are You Going, Mary Sue?", an English song written by Spinetta himself. Kleiman was impressed and offered them a single recording contract with RCA, with Rodolfo Alchurrón as artistic director. The album was recorded in November and released the following year, with "Tema de Pototo" as the A-side and "El mundo entre las manos" as the B-side. The former was a song composed by Spinetta with Edelmiro Molinari, and the latter was his own composition. That same year, RCA Victor used several of Spinetta's songs for other artists on the label to record. Leonardo Favio also recorded "Tema de Pototo" under the title "Para saber cómo es la soledad," achieving resounding success throughout Latin America. The duo Bárbara y Dick also recorded a single, to be released the following year, featuring two Spinetta songs: "Hoy ya no se puede" and "Tristeza por todas partes," the latter co-written with Rodolfo García. Finally, Los In recorded "Where Are You Going, Mary Sue?", the Spinetta and Del Guercio song that Kleiman heard when he first heard Almendra, and it was included on the album Nuestra Juventud, released that same year. In March, after the summer season ended, they were invited to play at the Ancón Festival in Peru, where they gave two performances. On March 24, they gave their first public performance in Buenos Aires, at the Di Tella Institute. Two weeks later, they performed at the Teatro del Globo in Buenos Aires, premiering several Spinetta songs that would be included on their first LP, such as "Fermín," "Figuración," and "Ana No Duerme," and some from their second LP, such as "Hoy Todo el Hielo en la Ciudad" and "Campos Verdes." The concert was recorded casually and at home by Amadeo Álvarez, singer of Los In and a friend of the band, and was edited and released as an album in 2004 by the newspaper Página/12. It constitutes a remarkable historical document, featuring Spinetta songs that don't exist in other versions, such as "Tragedia familiar" (Family Tragedy). Spinetta was beginning to propose an unclassifiable style of music, free of preconceptions, in which poetry also played a decisive role. "Spinetta proves that the poetic act in rock is inseparable from the sound," says Fernando García in the 2006 issue of La Mano magazine dedicated entirely to the musician. The group released two more singles ("Hoy todo hielo la ciudad/Campos verdes" and "Gabinetes espacials/final") and made two music videos ("Campos verdes" and "El mundo entre las manos"), considered among the first music videos made in Argentina. On Sunday, June 6th, at the Coliseo Theater, as part of the recital series organized by Pinap magazine, they premiered "Muchacha (ojos de papel)." The song expressed Spinetta's feelings for his first great love, Cristina Bustamante, and would become one of the most important songs in the Latin American popular songbook. During the second half of 1969, Almendra dedicated themselves to recording their first full-length album, a landmark album repeatedly considered the best Argentine rock album, and even one of the best in the world. Released on January 15, 1970, the cover features a drawing by Spinetta himself depicting a kind of crying clown with a toy arrow in its head. The record label tried to discard the illustration by intentionally losing it, but Luis Alberto redrew it, demanding that the cover be produced according to his instructions. The illustrator Rep considers it one of the ten best album covers he has ever seen. The album consists of nine tracks, all of exceptional quality and all considered highlights of the Argentine songbook. Seven tracks were written by Spinetta: "Muchacha (ojos de papel)," "Figuración," "Ana no duerme," "Fermín," "Plegaria para un niño dormido," "Que el viento borró tus manos," and "Laura va." Among them stands out "Muchacha (ojos de papel)," considered by many to be the best song in the history of Argentine rock. The track "Laura va" features the bandoneon playing of Rodolfo Mederos, a tango musician in the Piazzolla tradition, in a rare instance of exchange between tango and rock at the time. The album reflects a variety of musical roots, from tango and folk to The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, creatively combined without preconceived notions and with a poetic complexity that seemed incompatible with mass appeal, even though tango was already characterized by a strong connection to poetry. The album was a success and cemented the band's fame. However, the artistic and personal differences between its members were significant, and after the failure to prepare a rock opera, the group broke up, but not before releasing a double album that same year, known as Almendra II, which contains well-known tracks such as "Rutas argentinas", "Los elefantes" (a reaction to the cruelty of the film Mondo Cane), and "Parvas," a song highlighted by Spinetta for its psychedelic nature. The album lacks unity because it reflects the different paths the band members had taken that year. For Spinetta, it was about reaching the "paroxysm," about "our music disintegrating." The reasons for Almendra's breakup are complex, and each member offers a different analysis. What is certain is that Almendra did not belong to the "central" rock scene, with its harder lifestyle, drug use, and power struggles and vested interests. Their inclusion in this scene occurred in various ways, influencing the breakup. Among the reasons Spinetta often cited for the breakup were the failed opera and the "breakdown" he experienced in an environment he would later seek to distance himself from. For Luis Alberto, Almendra's inability to seriously embrace their own musical evolution played a crucial role. This manifested in the abandonment of the rehearsal discipline that characterized the band in its early days, ultimately preventing them from premiering a rock opera already composed by Spinetta. It was to be called Señor de las Latas, and its plot was a magical-symbolic representation of the emerging Argentine rock movement. Its characters were Litto Nebbia, Moris, Tanguito, Javier Martínez, Roque Narvaja, and Miguel Abuelo. Spinetta played the Water Magician, an extraterrestrial being who becomes a beggar in search of himself. The opera was supposed to premiere in mid-1970, but the band only managed to complete rehearsals for the first of its two acts. No recordings of the opera remain, but several themes were later performed by Spinetta, such as "Obertura" (in Almendra II), "Canción Para Los Días De La Vida" (A 18' del sol), "Ella también" (Kamikaze), "Canción del mago de agua", "Caminata", Historias de la inteligencia" and "Viejos profetas de lo eterno", the last four performed at the Kamikaze presentation recital. After Almendra's breakup, Spinetta experienced what he himself considered his "darkest" and most "chaotic" period. His relationship with Cristina Bustamante, with whom he was deeply in love, had ended, and he became heavily involved with a group of musicians and people from the artistic scene, a group with heavy drug use that would take a heavy emotional toll. Pappo stood out in this group, and Spinetta developed a relationship of great admiration and affection with him, which would end very negatively. He tried to form a band called Tórax with Edelmiro Molinari, Héctor "Pomo" Lorenzo, and Carlos Cutaia, but they never performed live. In December 1970, he participated in the first album by Billy Bond y La Pesada del Rock and Roll, along with Pappo, Pomo, and Black Amaya, contributing his own song, "El parque". He then decided to record an album that, while being an experiment in aleatoric music—something he had wanted to do with Almendra—would also be a kind of retribution against RCA. The recording took place with a large number of guests in the studio, with no regard for silence, and the lyrics were written right there. An "anti-album," as he himself described it. Pappo (contributing two tracks, "Castillo de piedra" and "Era de tontos"), Miguel Abuelo, and Pomo all participated on the album. Spinetta collaborated with Pomo on "Descalza camina," his favorite song on this album. RCA released the album in March 1971, but the company didn't respect the original title, Spinettalandia y sus amigos, and instead titled it Almendra, Luis Alberto Spinetta, and La búsqueda de la estrella, which led to a lawsuit from the former members of Almendra that the record company lost. After recording the album in just over a day, he gave his guitar to Pappo—who would later sell it—and left with two girls on a trip to an unspecified destination that took them through Brazil, the United States, and Europe for seven months. When Spinetta returned from Europe in late 1971, "Muchacha (ojos de papel)" had become a commercial hit, largely because an advertisement for the textile company Estexa used it as the soundtrack. Luis Alberto, on the other hand, sought to break free from the constraints and limitations that the record industry might impose. This ambition led him to form Pescado Rabioso, following the model of Pappo's Blues, which would become one of the most prominent bands in Argentine popular music and had three different lineups. Initially, it was a trio, consisting of Spinetta on guitar and lead vocals, Black Amaya on drums, and Osvaldo "Bocón" Frascino on bass. While they were recording their first album, Carlos Cutaia joined on keyboards. In October 1972, Bocón Frascino left the band and was replaced by David Lebón, who had left his position as drummer in Color Humano to play bass in Spinetta's band. The two would forge a close friendship, even living together for a year. The band's name itself, conceived by Spinetta before returning to Argentina, expressed that "punk moment" characterized by rage, but at the same time conveyed the paradoxical situation of a fish with a phobia of water (hydrophobia). Spinetta considered that the song that best represented that punk moment he was experiencing was "El jardinero (temprano amaneció)" (Desatormentándonos). The band released two considerably different albums: Desatormentándonos (1972) and Pescado 2 (1973), a double album. Desatormentándonos, released in September 1972, is an album of blues, psychedelia, and heavy rock, at a time when heavy rock was just beginning to emerge worldwide. The original album contains five tracks composed by Spinetta, including "Blues de Cris," a farewell song to his "girl"; "El jardinero (temprano amaneció)," an 8-minute progressive blues; "Dulce 3 nocturno," the group's foundational track, composed with Black Amaya and Bocón Frascino, refers to the trio they were originally; "Algo flota en la laguna," considered the best song in Argentine rock; and "Serpiente (viaja por la sal)," a symphonic rock song featuring Cutaia on keyboards. Spinetta imbued the album with a rebellious spirit and a paranoid mindset stemming from his time in France. When the album was reissued on CD, it included three important bonus tracks that had been released as singles: "Me gusta ese tajo" (considered the best song in Argentine rock and censored by the military government), "Despiértate nena," sung by Lebón, and "Poscrucifixión," with a remarkable riff. Critics often consider the album a masterpiece overshadowed by its inclusion between two other great masterpieces: Pescado 2 and Artaud. In September 1972, the band performed a concert at the Teatro Olimpia in Buenos Aires, which was partially filmed to include two songs ("Post Crucifixion" and "Despiertate Nena") in Aníbal Uset's film Hasta Que Se Ponga El Sol (1973), as well as a fictionalized scene in which a paramilitary group guns down David Lebón. In the film, Spinetta appears with a police siren on his back, alluding to the police repression during the final years of the Lanusse dictatorship. In February 1973, the quartet released a double album, Pescado 2—recorded between November of the previous year and the end of January—which Rolling Stone magazine ranked as the 19th best album in the history of Argentine rock. The album title refers to the two discs it comprises: Pescado on the first and 2 (Dos) on the second. The album brought a new sound to Latin rock, while Spinetta's lyrics openly embraced the poetic-philosophical content that would become characteristic of his work, in this case primarily influenced by Rimbaud. The album came with a 52-page booklet, handwritten and filled with drawings and some photos of the musicians as children, where the lyrics were transcribed and each song was explained. Spinetta had envisioned the album as a musical continuation; the introduction of the CD in the 1980s allowed the work to be heard as a whole, as he had imagined. Among the standout tracks are "Credulidad" and "Cristálida," featuring a string ensemble from the National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Cutaia, which closes the album with an 8-minute, 45-second performance. After Pescado II, the differences within the group intensified to the point of leading to their breakup. Amaya, Lebón, and Cutaia wanted to move towards a style closer to the blues, while Spinetta wanted to continue with a more lyrical approach. Thus, the band disbanded without any formal announcement, and Spinetta embarked on a solo career, though he retained the name Pescado Rabioso. Meanwhile, after the breakup, David Lebón recorded his first solo album, which included the song "Tema para Luis," expressing everything Luis meant to him and ending with the line, "This is the end of an explanation of love." Pescado Rabioso broke up in mid-1973 at the Planeta Theater. Its members neither accepted nor understood the musical vision Luis Alberto was developing and simply stopped responding to his calls until he was left alone. Spinetta then continued on his own, with the projects he had been developing for Pescado Rabioso: "Pescado Rabioso was me." This is how Artaud emerged, one of the pinnacle works of Latin American music. The 1973 album Artaud, although presented as a Pescado Rabioso album, is actually a solo Spinetta album, recorded with some guests, including his brother Gustavo on drums, and his former Almendra bandmates, Emilio del Guercio and Rodolfo García. The album was composed during a crucial moment in South American history, a time of intense political violence, when civic-military dictatorships were beginning to take hold. These dictatorships, coordinated through Operation Condor and supported by the United States, would completely nullify human rights for two decades. Argentina, in particular, had managed to get the dictatorship that called itself the Argentine Revolution to hold free elections that year, the first in almost two decades. The popular vote had given Peronism a resounding victory in March, a movement with which Spinetta sympathized. But the democratic government would not be able to consolidate, plagued by violent confrontations that would lead to its overthrow in early 1976 and the establishment of a brutal dictatorship that would remain in power until the end of 1983. This dictatorship would commit genocide and lead the country into war, the Falklands War. Furthermore, this historical moment coincided with a decisive moment in Spinetta's personal life, when he met Patricia Salazar, with whom he would form a stable relationship for almost 25 years and with whom he would raise four children. The lyrics of the song "Por" from the album Artaud—composed of a succession of isolated words, all nouns except for the preposition "por" that closes the poem and gives the song its title—were written jointly by the two of them. At this historical, cultural, and personal crossroads, Artaud appears, inspired precisely by the suffering and feelings of rejection that the poetry of the French writer Antonin Artaud produced in Spinetta. The musician associated that moment in the country with the suicidal madness of Artaud's poetry and with the rock nihilism expressed in drugs and "senseless promiscuity," and he felt it was incompatible with his own vision of rock—expressed in the Manifesto that Spinetta published simultaneously with the album—and of the meaning of life. The album's original cover stands out for its irregular design, breaking with the traditional square format of vinyl records. The work was presented at two solo concerts Spinetta performed at the Teatro Astral in October of that same year. At these concerts, he unveiled his manifesto, titled "Rock: música dura, la suicidada por la sociedad" paraphrasing—precisely—one of Artaud's books (Van Gogh: The Man Suicided by Society) that inspired the album. By the end of 1973, Spinetta had formed a new band, Invisible, with Carlos Alberto "Machi" Rufino on bass and Héctor "Pomo" Lorenzo on drums. The band achieved immediate and widespread acclaim. With this group, he released three albums before disbanding in 1976, two of which were included in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 best Argentine rock albums. In early 1974, their first single, "Estado de coma", was released, featuring the songs "Elementales leches" and "Estado de coma." Months later came their first LP, also titled Invisible, which was so long that a bonus single, "La llave del Mandala", was included with the vinyl, featuring two additional tracks: "La llave del Mandala" and "Lo que nos ocupa es esa abuela, la conciencia que regula el mundo" . All this material was a perfect showcase of the new style Spinetta was developing, with complex structures and lyrics like "El diluvio y la pasajera"), inspired by readings about pre-Columbian indigenous cultures. The album is considered by Rolling Stone magazine to be number 65 on its list of the 100 best Argentine rock albums. The band's second album was Durazno sangrando, an almost conceptual work, with lyrics inspired by a book by Carl Gustav Jung and Richard Wilhelm, The Secret of the Golden Flower. Despite its musical complexity, it featured one of Spinetta's most famous songs, which gave the album its title. In 1976, Invisible released El jardín de los presentes with Tomás Gubitsch on guitar as the fourth member. The recording of this new Invisible sound, which many called "tango-rock," would transform it into one of the best Argentine rock albums (number 28 according to Rolling Stone magazine), characterized by its fusion of rhythms and genres, achieving immediate massive success. This LP includes one of Spinetta's classic songs, "El Anillo del Capitán Beto". The group's farewell concert was in December 1976 with two sold-out shows at Luna Park Stadium, featuring Rodolfo Mederos on bandoneon as a guest. Shortly before, his partner Patricia had become pregnant, which led the couple to marry on September 16th, and their first son, Dante, was born on December 9th. In 1977, he released an album with several musicians (Machi, Rapoport, etc.) titled "A 18' del sol" (18 Minutes from the Sun), in which he explored jazz-fusion. The album included the songs "Canción para los días de la vida" (Song for the Days of Life) and "Toda la vida tiene música hoy" (All of Life Has Music Today). However, Rapoport's influence would lead Luis's ideas toward jazz-rock and jazz, influenced by Mahavishnu, Weather Report, and others. In June 1977, he performed as a trio with Diego Rapoport on keyboards and Machi on bass at the Lasalle Theater, playing some of the tracks from the album and some of the repertoire of what would become the unreleased "Banda Spinetta". In this band, Luis joined forces with jazz musicians to develop his mostly instrumental jazz-rock fusion sound. Thus, they debuted at the Teatro Coliseo in 1977, with songs such as "Covadonga," "Las Alas del Grillo," the extensive suite of over twenty minutes, "Tríptico del Eterno Verdor," "Estrella Gris," "El Turquito," and "Bahiana Split," among others. At the beginning of 1978, Luis's idea was to release a Banda Spinetta album called "Los Espacios Amados" (a title that also included songs from the band's repertoire). They performed at Obras Sanitarias with the band's most stable lineup, which included: Bernardo Baraj on saxophones; Ricardo Sans on bass; Luis Cerávolo on drums; Eduardo Zvetelman on keyboards; and as a special guest, Gustavo Moreto, formerly of Alma y Vida and Alas, on trumpet, forming what was arguably the band's best and most polished version. They closed out 1978 with a performance at the Atenas stadium in La Plata on December 2nd, 1978, and at the Teatro Avenida ten days later. Differences between the members and the inability to record the material led to the band's collapse, which finally ended in late 1978. In 1979, the remnant of Spinetta's band was "Experiencia Demente," an ephemeral group that played in Mar del Plata in January of that year. The band featured two guitars, Spinetta and Gustavo Bazterrica (formerly of La Máquina de Hacer Pájaros), Luis Cerávolo on drums, and Rinaldo Rafanelli (formerly of Sui Generis and Polifemo) on bass. They performed nascent material that would later be included on Spinetta Jade, such as the seminal version of "Viento Celeste." Tracks like "Pájaros de la Fe" and "El Sueño de Chita," among others, remained unreleased. But Luis's sound was already evolving; the instrumental aspect was fading in favor of a more song-oriented format, which he would develop on Jade, still with a jazz-rock sound. In 1978 Spinetta released his first and his only book, "Guitarra Negra". With the support of tennis player Guillermo Vilas, around 1979 he signed a worldwide publishing contract with Columbia Records (CBS) and recorded his own songs and covers of Gino Vannelli's songs in the United States with top-notch American musicians. This was his only album in English, titled Only Love Can Sustain. It featured Gustavo Bazterrica on a guitar solo, as Luis had presented CBS executives with a cassette of the songs he wanted to include on the album (the instrumental "Jade," which became *Interludes*, "The Children of the Bells," etc.) played by Bazterrica and Lito Vitale, hoping to include these Argentine musicians on the recording. However, the company selected only the guitarist. The album also includes songs by other artists, with a more commercial sound and an "Americanized" or "FM" feel, with the aim of entering the American market. CBS even provided Luis with a tutor to help him improve his English. Nevertheless, this album It didn't reflect Spinetta's true style, in his own words. Furthermore, it didn't achieve the desired success, which led to the mutual termination of the contract. Luis wanted to return to his roots; everything was in place for Almendra's return ten years later, for a generation that hadn't seen the legendary band perform. In 1980, Almendra reunited. Together with Emilio del Guercio, Edelmiro Molinari, and Rodolfo García, they released a studio album, El Valle Interior, and a double live album recorded at the Obras Sanitarias Stadium. Alongside the Almendra reunion, Spinetta Jade was formed with Diego Rapoport on keyboards, Beto Satragni on bass, Juan del Barrio on keyboards, and Héctor "Pomo" Lorenzo on drums. With this group, he released four albums in total, with several changes in lineup and style, ranging from a purely jazz sound to a more pop-oriented one and (in their last work) an almost galactic sound. During this time, he also released two solo albums: Kamikaze in 1982 (a compilation of unreleased tracks and one of his fans' favorite works) and Mondo di cromo in 1983. By 1985, a duet album with Charly García was planned, but they only managed to record the track "Rezo por vos," included on Luis Alberto's next album, Privé, which also features "No seas fanática" with Raúl Porchetto. The project that did come to fruition was "La la la" (1986), an album with Fito Páez that generated great anticipation. Tracks like "Instan-Taneas," "Folis Verghet," and "Todos esos Años de Gente" stood out. It also includes a version of the tango "Gricel." This album is notable for both its composition and its harmonies. After two years of silence, Spinetta released Téster de violencia (1988). The album was named Best of the Year by the Clarín newspaper's Sí section, and the track "El mono tremendo" won in its category. He then released "Don Lucero" (1989), also selected as Best Album, as was the track "Fina ropa blanca." In 1990, his first solo live album, Exactas, was released, recorded at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires. The band featured L.A. Spinetta, along with talented musicians Javier Malosetti and Marcelo Novati, as well as other renowned figures who had already been working with him (Claudio Cardone, Jota Morelli, Mono Fontana, etc.). After a period of few performances, he played at "Mi Buenos Aires Rock," a festival organized by the City of Buenos Aires, which drew 150,000 people to Avenida 9 de Julio in December 1990, alongside Charly García, Fabiana Cantilo, and La Portuaria. He also performed songs from Piel de piel. For the third time in four years, Spinetta composed the best album of the year, Pelusón of Milk (1991), and his most popular song, "Seguir viviendo sin tu amor". In 1993, he composed the soundtrack for the film Fuego gris (Gray Fire), directed by Pablo César, before dedicating himself to Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto (Spinetta and the Desert Partners), a trio also comprised of Daniel "Tuerto" Wirtz (drums) and Marcelo Torres (bass). With this group, he undertook a mini-tour of the country and played at the Opera Theater, in what polls voted the Best Show of the Year. In March 1996, he fulfilled what he himself called "an old debt to the public": playing a free, open-air concert in the Palermo Woods. After several years and disputes with record companies, Spinetta released a double album, simply titled Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto, featuring the songs he had already performed live. With exceptional artwork, this CD quickly reached the top of the charts. With this group he would release two more albums: San Cristoforo in 1998 (live) and Los ojos in 1999. With these musicians and other guests he also recorded the album Estrelicia (MTV Unplugged) in 1997 reviewing songs from his entire career. Silver Sorgo (2001) marked Spinetta's return to the studio after years of silence and several compilation albums. It contains 12 tracks that he began composing in 1998 (Cine de atrás). This material was presented live at the end of the year and recorded live for the album Argentina Sorgo Films Presenta: Spinetta Obras (2002). With Para los árboles (2003), Spinetta again employed keyboards and instrumental passages as a primary instrument, while also experimenting with electronic music to pay homage to the beauties of Nature beyond the human eye. Camalotus, a four-track EP, was presented at a mini-concert on FM Rock & Pop (an Argentinian radio station). It consists of three previously unreleased tracks—"Cristantemo" (from the film Flores De Septiembre), "Buenos Aires alma de piedra," and "Nelly, no me mientas"—and a remix of "Agua de la miseria," the first single from the 2003 album Para los Arboles, by Rafael Aracaute. It also includes a DVD with the music videos for "Correr frente a ti," "El enemigo," and "Tonta luz," directed by Eduardo Martí. In July 2004, Nerina Nicotra replaced Malosetti on bass, and in May 2005, Sergio Verdinelli joined, beginning a gradual replacement of drummer Daniel Wirtz—who was battling cancer that would claim his life in early 2008—thus forming Spinetta's final band, with himself and Claudio Cardone on keyboards. In 2006, he released Pan, which prominently featured keyboards played by Claudio Cardone. The band was completed by Nerina Nicotra and Sergio Verdinelli. In 2008, he released Un mañana. The album was recorded with his current band and featured guitarists Sartén Asaresi, Baltasar Comotto, and Nicolás Ibarburu. On October 23, 2009, Spinetta appeared as a guest at Charly García's comeback concert (a concert that would later be called "Subacuático" because it rained for almost the entire performance). Spinetta played the legendary song Rezo por vos with García, a song they had composed together for the Spinetta/García project. On December 4, 2009, he closed out the decade with Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas, a massive concert at Vélez Sarsfield Stadium in Buenos Aires lasting over five hours. He revisited his entire career accompanied by each of the bands he had led, and was joined by guests such as Fito Páez, Charly García, Ricardo Mollo, Juanse, and Gustavo Cerati. On December 4, 2010, exactly one year after the historic concert, the recording, Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas, was released. It includes almost the entire concert, both in audio and on DVD, plus a book of photographs and a DVD with footage of the rehearsals for the event. On December 11, 2010, he participated in the historic El Abrazo 2010 Festival in Santiago, Chile, which brought together several of the most important figures in the history of Chilean and Argentine rock. On February 2, 2011, she performed at the Cosquín Rock festival with a new lineup in her band, which would turn out to be the last: Claudio Cardone remained on keyboards and Sergio Verdinelli on drums, and Baltasar Comotto joined on guitar and bassist Matías Mendez replaced Nerina Nicotra who left the group permanently to dedicate herself to motherhood.60 This lineup had been presented previously, but at this concert it became definitive. Deeply moved by the fatal traffic accident involving the children from Colegio Ecos around 2006, Spinetta in his last public appearances, tried to raise awareness about the responsibility of citizens behind the wheel. After his tribute concert in December 2009, his bandmates from that concert and throughout his career, Beto Satragni and Diego Rapoport, passed away. Spinetta made his illness public around December 2011; in a letter, he wrote that he was being cared for by his "loving family, his dearest friends, and the best doctors in the country." After emergency surgery for diverticulitis, he remained hospitalized during January 2012. However, it was lung cancer, diagnosed in July 2011, that ultimately led to his death on February 8. According to sources close to the family, Spinetta died at home, surrounded by his four children, who days later posted the following on Twitter: "This is the place. Those who wish to bring a flower and say goodbye to our father can do so next to the Paseo de la Memoria, here on the Costanera (riverfront promenade)... Peace." The message was accompanied by a photo of the location and was signed by the four children, who scattered his ashes on February 15. Months later, Javier Malosetti, former bassist and Spinetta's friend shared a photo showing a print with the last poem Luis Alberto wrote, which read: «Nací, como nace un capullo, como nacemos todos junto al amor de los míos, que me dieron el sentido y el cuidado crecí día a día, como lo hemos hecho todos y al abrigo del hogar fui empezando a entender, por momentos jugando vi a las cosas perfectas, y el mundo, infinito ahora comprendo que el infinito no ha cambiado esta presente cuando miramos al cielo a los que amamos». ("I was born, like a bud, like we all are born, surrounded by the love of my family, who gave me meaning and care. I grew day by day, as we all have, and in the shelter of home, I began to understand. At times, playing, I saw things as perfect, and the world, infinite. Now I understand that infinity hasn't changed; it's present when we look to the sky at those we love.")
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