Luis Alberto Spinetta

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{{Infobox person

| image = Spinetta, 1969.jpg

| alt =

| caption = Spinetta performing with Almendra at Festival Pinap, 1969.

| height = 1.85 m{{citation needed|date=June 2024}}

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1950|1|23|df=yes}}

| birth_place = Buenos Aires, Argentina

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2012|2|8|1950|1|23|df=yes}}

| death_place = Buenos Aires, Argentina

| resting_place = Ashes scattered in the Río de la Plata, facing the Remembrance park

| occupation = {{hlist|Singer|songwriter|composer|guitarist|poet}}

| years_active = 1967–2012

| spouse = {{marriage|Patricia Salazar|16 September 1976|1995|end=divorced}}

| children = 4, including Dante

| module = {{Infobox musical artist|embed=yes

| instrument = {{hlist|Vocals|guitar|keyboards}}

| genre = {{hlist|Jazz rock|psychedelic rock|progressive rock|folk|hard rock|art rock|pop}}

| past_member_of = {{hlist|Almendra|Pescado Rabioso|Invisible|Spinetta Jade}}

| label = {{hlist|RCA Victor|Talent-Microfón|Discos CBS|Interdisc|Del Cielito|EMI|PolyGram|Sony Music|UMG}}

}}

| signature = Firma de Spinetta vector.svg

}}

Luis Alberto Spinetta (23 January 1950 – 8 February 2012), nicknamed "El Flaco" (Spanish for "skinny"), was an Argentine singer, guitarist, composer, writer and poet. One of the most influential rock musicians of Argentina, he is widely regarded as one of the founders of Argentine rock, which is considered one of the first incarnations of Spanish-language rock.{{Cite web|date=2021-02-08|title=Spinetta: el pionero buscador de una poesía en español para el rock|url=https://www.futuro.cl/2021/02/spinetta-el-pionero-buscador-de-una-poesia-en-espanol-para-el-rock/|access-date=2021-06-11|website=Futuro|language=es}} Born in Buenos Aires, he was the founder of several iconic rock bands including Almendra, Pescado Rabioso, Invisible, Spinetta Jade, and Spinetta y Los Socios del Desierto. In Argentina, January 23rd is celebrated as "Día Nacional del Músico" (National Musician's Day) in honor of Spinetta's birth.{{Cite web|title=Día Nacional del Músico|url=https://www.cultura.gob.ar/dia-nacional-del-musico-y-la-musica-10035/|access-date=2021-06-11|website=www.cultura.gob.ar|language=es}}{{Cite news|last=López|first=Alberto|date=2020-01-23|title=Luis Alberto Spinetta 'El Flaco', el padre del rock en español|language=es|work=El País|url=https://elpais.com/cultura/2020/01/23/actualidad/1579760797_367000.html|access-date=2021-06-11|issn=1134-6582}}{{Cite web|title=Spinetta: el indómito instinto de transformación|url=http://www.laizquierdadiario.com/Spinetta-el-indomito-instinto-de-transformacion|access-date=2021-06-11|website=La Izquierda Diario - Red internacional|language=es}}

Spinetta devoted himself fully to his own music. In his lyrics, there are influences of multiple writers, poets and artists like Arthur Rimbaud, Vincent van Gogh, Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Carlos Castañeda and Antonin Artaud, whom the album Artaud (1973) is named after.[http://www.terra.com/musica/gustavo-cerati/influencias.html Influencias]

In December 2011 he announced that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer.[http://twextra.com/ah9n37 Carta pública] {{webarchive|url=https://archive.today/20120730143749/http://twextra.com/ah9n37 |date=30 July 2012 }} {{in lang|es}}[http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultimas/20-184074-2011-12-23.html La carta del Flaco]{{in lang|es}} He died on 8 February 2012 at the age of 62.[http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultimas/20-187198-2012-02-08.html Murió Luis Alberto Spinetta] {{in lang|es}} His ashes were scattered in Buenos Aires in the waters of the Río de la Plata, according to his last wish.[http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/pirulo/30-187709-2012-02-16.html PAZ]{{in lang|es}}

Biography

Luis Alberto Spinetta was born on 23 January 1950 as the second of three siblings: Ana María and Carlos Gustavo, the latter of which also became a musician, to Luis Santiago and Julia (née Ramírez), and grew up in the neighborhood of Núñez in Buenos Aires.{{cite web|access-date=2 April 2017 |title=Spinetta íntimo, entrevista online del año 2011 |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnXWofrtvzY}} His childhood home was only two blocks away from the Estadio Monumental.{{cite book|date=1988 |first=Eduardo |last=Berti |location=Buenos Aires |page=15 |publisher=Editora AC |title=Spinetta: crónica e iluminaciones}}. Luis Santiago was an amateur tango singer who formed a group accompanied by guitarists and performed on several radio stations.{{cite book|date=1988 |first=Eduardo |last=Berti |location=Buenos Aires |page=9 |publisher=Editora AC |title=Spinetta: crónica e iluminaciones}}. Through his father, Spinetta was of Italian descent, as his great-grandfather was from the municipality of Carrega Ligure in the Piedmont region.{{Cite web |last=mdzol.com |title=Spinetta, ruido de magia |url=https://www.mdzol.com/sociedad/2020/1/14/spinetta-ruido-de-magia-59422.html |access-date=2025-03-02 |website=MdzOnline |language=spanish}}

Amid the counterculture of the 1960s and the political turmoil in Argentina, several artists during this time would develop Luis Alberto's musical range, especially the work of the Beatles. In one such case for example in 1964, during the height of Beatlemania, after winning a local music competition, Spinetta used the earnings to purchase their recently released album, Beatles for Sale.{{cite web|author=Ronnie Arias |date=1985 |publisher=Reportaje a Spinetta publicado por la revista Venus-Arte, reproducido en 1992 por la revista Ahora, y reproducido parcialmente en 2000 por el sitio Rebelde |title=Luis Alberto Spinetta: negro |url=http://www.dospotencias.com.ar/rebelde/spinettanegro.htm}} Spinetta also credited Los Shakers, a Uruguayan rock ban heavily influenced by the look and sound to that of the Beatles, and their leader, Hugo Fattoruso.{{cite web|access-date=6 February 2016 |archive-date=6 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206182420/http://www.lanacion.com.ar/458360-apuntes-sobre-la-creatividad-del-fatto |date=14 December 2002 |first=Luis Alberto |last=Spinetta |location=Argentina |title="Apuntes sobre la creatividad del Fatto |url=http://www.lanacion.com.ar/458360-apuntes-sobre-la-creatividad-del-fatto |url-status=dead |work=La Nación}} With these personal and cultural influences, Spinetta began to compose songs from a very young age, even before learning to play an instrument, even composing a hymn about Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.{{cite book|date=1988 |first=Eduardo |last=Berti |location=Buenos Aires |page=12 |publisher=Editora AC |title=Spinetta: crónica e iluminaciones}}. In a 1988 interview, Spinetta said, "I had fun imitating singers, copying sounds. That's why music was born in me before words." Spinetta also began singing tango songs and, from the age of four, his family, especially his uncles, encouraged him to sing at family gatherings. The influence of tango would be noticeable throughout Spinetta’s work. Three of his uncle worked at Columbia Records which allowed him access to a wide variety of musical expressions at a time when access to records was very expensive. Spinetta said several times that his artistic debut took place in 1964 in a television contest called Escala Musical on El Trece, although his father mentions that year he also sang in a children's program called La pandilla One and Two, later known as Pandilla Uanantú, which was broadcast on El Nueve between March and May 1964.

Having grown near Estadio Monumental, Spinetta was a lifelong supporter of Club Atlético River Plate, having mentioned the club in his song, "El anillo del Capitán Beto," a track from the album El jardín de los presentes during his tenure with Invisible.{{cite book|date=1988 |first=Eduardo |last=Berti |location=Buenos Aires |page=10 |publisher=Editora AC |title=Spinetta: crónica e iluminaciones}}. Spinetta was married to Patricia Salazar from 1976 until 1995. The couple had four children: Catarina, Dante, Valentino and Vera.

Music

=1960s and 1970s=

In 1969, Spinetta's band, Almendra, recorded their self-titled first album. They started recording and playing intensively, becoming successful almost overnight. Almendra composed their own songs and their lyrics were written in Spanish, something which was still new for Argentine rock music. After two albums that were received with critical acclaim and continuous radio exposure, the band split.

After a lengthy stay in Europe, Spinetta returned to Argentina and afterwards formed a new band, named Pescado Rabioso. With a far more powerful sound and expressing through their songs the tension of the streets in an increasingly violent Argentina, Pescado made their album debut in 1972. It was both a continuation of the creative stream of Spinetta and a drastic change in the style of his own music and lyrics. Later, the band recorded a second album named Pescado 2. Although a third album, released in 1973 and called Artaud, carried the band's name, the band had actually already dissolved. Therefore, it was mostly a solo album by Spinetta himself. Partly inspired by the writings of Theatre of Cruelty creator Antonin Artaud, particularly his essays Van Gogh, le suicidé de la société ("Van Gogh, the suicide by society") and Héliogabale ou l'Anarchiste couronné ("Heliogabalus, or the anarchist crowned"), Spinetta exorcised many of the demons of his past in this album. He simultaneously released a manifesto entitled Rock: música dura, la suicidada por la sociedad ("Rock: tough music, suicided by society"), a reference to Artaud's essay, in which he denounced the nihilistic hedonism and commercialisation he saw as having corrupted rock music.{{cite web|title=El manifiesto escrito por el Flaco en 1973, un documento que definió su obra|url=http://www.clarin.com/extrashow/manifiesto-escrito-Flaco-documento-definio_0_642535969.html|website=Clarin.com|date=8 February 2012 |access-date=21 January 2016}} This process would open the door to a new era in his music.

In 1974, Spinetta formed a new band, Invisible, whose music was based in progressive rock and psychedelia.{{Cite web |date=2022-04-29 |title=Invisible: la magistral banda de Spinetta que se gestó en un Fiat 600 y hoy revive en grabaciones inéditas convertidas en un disco |url=https://www.lanacion.com.ar/espectaculos/musica/invisible-la-magistral-banda-de-spinetta-que-se-gesto-en-un-fiat-600-y-hoy-revive-en-grabaciones-nid29042022/ |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=LA NACION |language=es}}{{Cite web |last1=Fern |first1=Por |last2=de 2022 |first2=o Sánchez15 de Mayo |title="Invisible en vivo 1975″, una maravillosa muestra de Luis Alberto Spinetta en pleno apogeo creativo |url=https://www.infobae.com/cultura/2022/05/15/invisible-en-vivo-1975-una-maravillosa-muestra-de-luis-alberto-spinetta-en-pleno-apogeo/ |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=infobae |date=15 May 2022 |language=Spanish}}{{Cite web |date=2022-05-24 |title="A Spinetta no solo lo frustró la experiencia de Invisible, sino del rock": la mirada del autor de "Tigres en el Lluvia" |url=https://www.perfil.com/noticias/cultura/a-spinetta-no-solo-lo-frustro-la-experiencia-de-invisible-si-no-del-rock-la-mirada-del-autor-de-tigres-en-el-lluvia.phtml |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=Perfil |language=es}} With his new band he recorded three albums: Invisible, Durazno Sangrando and El jardín de los presentes. In the latter, Spinetta took a novel approach, incorporating elements of tango and jazz into his sound.{{Cite web |title="El jardín de los presentes", el disco de Spinetta que salió en medio de la peor tragedia {{!}} Sociedad |url=https://www.losandes.com.ar/article/view?slug=el-jardin-de-los-presentes-el-disco-de-spinetta-que-salio-en-medio-de-la-peor-tragedia |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=Los Andes | date=6 March 2019 |language=es}}{{Cite web |last=Ortega |first=Rubén |date=2021-09-29 |title=A 45 años de 'El Jardín de Los Presentes' de Invisible |url=https://www.indierocks.mx/musica/articulos/a-45-anos-de-el-jardin-de-los-presentes-de-invisible/ |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=Indie Rocks! |language=es}}

After recording and editing a failed album in the United States in 1979, with lyrics in English and destined to the U.S. market, Spinetta returned to Argentina to record two albums with a short-lived Almendra revival (one with original songs and the other live), and embarked on a new project, Spinetta Jade. {{Citation needed|date=February 2012}}

=1980s and beyond=

File:Luis Alberto Spinetta y Charly García 1984 II.jpg and Spinetta in 1984.]]

Spinetta Jade would prove to be a successful and innovative band; Spinetta was joined by some of the most acclaimed Argentine musicians to help him build the new sound he was building since Invisible. The product: a blend of jazz and rock that was unseen in Argentina drawing away from the symphonic rock that dominated the middle 70s, and escaping the boom of new wave, punk, reggae, glam pop etc that reached both the world and Argentina in the 1980s.{{Cite web |last=TÉLAM |title=La Generación del 80: el grupo de artistas que desafió a los 'padres' del rock argentino |url=https://www.telam.com.ar/notas/202004/456162-la-generacion-del-80-el-grupo-de-artistas-que-desafio-a-los-padres-del-rock-argentino.html |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=www.telam.com.ar |language=es}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SIvPCPcz26kC&dq=los+80+rock+nacional+invasion+pop&pg=PA356 |title=Las voces de los '80: Conversaciones con los protagonistas del fenómeno pop-rock |date=2012-06-04 |publisher=RIL Editores |language=es}}{{Cite web |last=Rock.com.ar |title=Invasión Argentina: si Gerli fuera Nueva York |url=http://rock.com.ar/notas/invasion-argentina-si-gerli-fuera-nueva-york |access-date=2022-08-07 |website=rock.com.ar |language=es-AR}}{{Cite web |title=Ayer Nomás: Brevísima historia del rock argentino (1966-2000) |url=http://www.elortiba.org/old/ayernomas.html |language=Spanish}} These four albums, Alma de Diamante (1980), Los Niños que Escriben en el Cielo (1981), Bajo Belgrano (1983) and Madre en Años Luz (1984), represent a defined style as well as the footprints of Spinetta's evolution. Spinetta and Charly García (with their respective bands at the moment, Jade and Serú Giran) joined efforts and gave what was considered amongst the most important shows in the history of Argentine rock.{{Citation needed|date=January 2023}} After dissolving Spinetta Jade in 1984, Spinetta worked on an album with Charly, but eventually they abandoned their efforts. Only two songs remain of the ill-fated effort, "Rezo por Vos" and "Total Interferencia".{{Citation needed|date=February 2012}}

By 1982, Spinetta had restarted his solo projects. Kamikaze (1982) puts together a number of previously unreleased songs (one gem is an early song he composed in 1965 called "Barro Tal Vez"). In Mondo Di Cromo (1983) Spinetta's new production, from 1986 to 1993, would include four solo albums (Privé, 1986), Téster de Violencia (1988), Don Lucero (1989), Pelusón of Milk (1991), a joint album with Fito Páez, another Argentine great (La La La, 1986), and the soundtrack of the movie Fuego Gris (named after the film, 1993).{{Citation needed|date=April 2023}}

After a long hiatus, largely due to Spinetta's conflicts with recording companies, he finally opened a new period in his music with his new band: Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto. Over three years (1997–1999) the band released four albums. Two studio albums, the double Socios del Desierto (1997) and Los Ojos (1999) would bring a new sound. The band made an MTV Unplugged live album, Estrelicia (1998), which, because of its soft acoustics, contrasts with their live album, San Cristóforo (1998). As Spinetta said at the beginning of the first concert, "Fans de lo acústico, abstenerse" ("Fans of acoustic music, refrain"). In 1998, he selected the featured songs and artwork of a greatest hits album called Elija y Gane, which was released the same year. {{Citation needed|date=February 2012}}

The band dissolved quietly towards the end of 1999. Spinetta started a solo career, including Silver Sorgo (2001), Obras en Vivo (2002), a live album, Para Los Árboles (2003), Camalotus (2004), a single of three unreleased songs and one remix, Pan (2006) and Un Mañana (2008). In 2005, he received the Platinum Konex Award for best rock soloist of the 1995–2005 decade. A number of books and TV documentaries have been devoted to him, like Argentine writer Eduardo Berti's, which includes a long conversation with Spinetta, among many others {{Cite web |last=Zunini |first=Por Patricio |title=7 libros para conocer el legado de Luis Alberto Spinetta |url=https://www.infobae.com/grandes-libros/2020/01/23/7-libros-para-conocer-el-legado-de-luis-alberto-spinetta/ |access-date=2023-08-10 |website=infobae |date=23 January 2020 |language=es-ES}}

Spinetta celebrated his 40 years in music with a five-and-a-half-hour concert called "Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas" (Spinetta and The Eternal Bands) in front of 40 thousand fans at Vélez Sarsfield Stadium in Buenos Aires. It was later considered by Argentine music critics as "the greatest gig of the decade".{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

Death

Spinetta died of lung cancer at 62 years of age on 8 February 2012.

Recognition

On 23 January 2020, Google celebrated his 70th birthday with a Google Doodle.{{cite web|url=https://doodles.google/doodle/luis-alberto-spinettas-70th-birthday/|title=Luis Alberto Spinetta's 70th Birthday|website=Google|date=23 January 2020}}

Discography

=Almendra=

Studio albums

Almendra (1969)
Almendra II (1970)
El Valle Interior (1980)

Live albums

Almendra en Obras I/II (1980)

=Pescado Rabioso=

Desatormentándonos (1972)
Pescado 2 (1973)
Artaud (1973)

=Invisible=

Studio albums

Invisible (1974)
Durazno Sangrando (1975)
El jardín de los presentes (1976)

Non-album singles

"Estado de coma" (1974)

"La llave del Mandala" (1974)
"Viejos ratones del tiempo" (1974)

Live albums

En Vivo Teatro Coliseo 1975 (2022)

=Spinetta Jade=

Alma de Diamante (1980)
Los Niños Que Escriben En El Cielo (1981)
Bajo Belgrano (1983)
Madre en Años Luz (1984)

=Spinetta y los Socios del Desierto=

Studio albums

Socios del Desierto (1996)
Los Ojos (1999)

Live albums

San Cristóforo (1998)

=Solo=

Studio albums

Spinettalandia y Sus Amigos - La Búsqueda de la Estrella (1971)
Artaud (1973, edited as an album of Pescado Rabioso)
A 18´ del Sol (1977)
Only Love Can Sustain (1980) (Solo el Amor Puede Sostener)
Kamikaze (1982)
Mondo Di Cromo (1983)
Privé (1986)
La La La (1986, con Fito Páez)
Téster de Violencia (1988)
Don Lucero (1989)
Pelusón of Milk (1991)
Fuego Gris (1993, soundtrack)
Silver Sorgo (2001)
Para los Árboles (2003)
Camalotus (2004)
Pan (2006)
Un Mañana (2008)
Los Amigo (2015, posthumous)

Live albums

Exactas (1990, live)
Estrelicia (1997, MTV Unplugged)
San Cristóforo: Un Sauna de Lava Eléctrico (1998, live)
Argentina Sorgo Films Presenta: Spinetta Obras (2002, live)
Spinetta y las Bandas Eternas (2010, live)
Presentación ARTAUD - 1973 - Teatro Astral (2020, official bootleg)
Presentación ARTAUD - 1973 - Teatro Astral Vol. 2 (2021, official bootleg)

Compilations

Elija y Gane (1999, greatest hits)
Ya no mires atrás (2020, unreleased material) (recorded 2008–09)

Poetry

1978: Guitarra negra (English: "Black Guitar"). Buenos Aires: Ediciones Tres Tiempos.

References

External links

{{Commons-inline}}
[https://web.archive.org/web/20040925002438/http://www.laspinetta.com.ar/ Official Page] (Spanish)
[https://rock.com.ar/artistas/luis-alberto-spinetta/ Biography at Rock.com.ar] (Spanish)

Category:1950 births

Category:2012 deaths

Category:Argentine male guitarists

Category:20th-century Argentine male singers

Category:Argentine male singer-songwriters

Category:Argentine people of Italian descent

Category: People of Ligurian descent

Category:Argentine singer-songwriters

Category:Argentine multi-instrumentalists

Category:21st-century Argentine male singers

Category:Deaths from lung cancer in Argentina

Category:Musicians from Buenos Aires