Otero’s sandpaper entry has stamped a unique stamp on each of his performances.
Today marks ten years. On June 12, 2012, Adrián Otero, former leader of the Memphis la Blusera grouphe died after being involved in an accident with his vehicle on the Rosario-Córdoba highway, near the city of Ballesteros, 173 kilometers from the provincial capital of Córdoba.
His Honda car lost control and crashed against the central flowerbed of the highway, while a person accompanying him was not injured, police sources said.
The 53-year-old musician led Memphis until 2008, a group he has been a part of for nearly 30 years since he debuted on stage in 1978 and where his particular voice was a hallmark.
At the time of his death, the musician was relaunching his solo career.
“Imán”, his solo album
After the disbandment of Memphis, Otero launched his solo career and in August 2008 presented the only album of this phase: Magnet. For the occasion he had performed two shows at La Trastienda.
However, in a few days, Otero’s second solo album was about to be released. On July 1, a work that saw the singer give his voice to several covers, all national rock, would be put up for sale. Among the songs performed by Otero appears Together in tandemby Pappo.
With Valeria Lynch and Patricia Sosa
One of his last appearances in the media was in May of this year, when Otero appeared dream of singing Y surprised one of the participants before singing, together with Valeria Lynch and Patricia Sosa, Together in tandem.
In 2009, in an interview with Clarione explained how he felt after leaving Memphis. “In recent years we have been working a lot on parties where people went to dance. The shows weren’t disappointing. If you listen you will see that we have included one blues per record; the rest was pastiche with or without blues. The blues, for me, was a tangential thing. I come from literature ”.
get to the classics
What for men, Moscato, Pizza e fainá, La bifurcada or The most beautiful flower These are some of the successes Adrián Otero has lent his voice to in Memphis.
“When we record big ass angels we did something that went towards pop, disco, which is what I like to do, ”Otero explained in 2009 and added, by way of revelation. “Disco music, soul music, music that doesn’t even have our roots.
And if not, what should I dedicate myself to? Tango? I already told you, the tango is dead. And everything repeats ad nauseam, everything I hear has the same cadences, the same riffs. There have never been avant-gardes. Vanguard is a word used to make garbage ”.
The ghost of addictions
Adrián Otero’s life was crossed by music, blues and in particular by his group: Memphis la Blusera. However, in 2008 he overturned the score and decided to leave the band he had led for nearly 30 years. One of the reasons that led him to make that decision must be sought a few months earlier, in November 2007 when he was hospitalized to fight his addictions.
The funeral, in the Buenos Aires legislature, brought together the atmosphere of musicians and a large audience who wanted to say the last farewell.
Drowned by what he called a strong relapse of alcohol and cocaine, Otero asked for help. This explained in 2008 a Clarione. “I felt bad, bogged down. I was in a rut I couldn’t get out of. The work was always the same, I realized that Memphis had no destiny. It was nothingness itself. And I couldn’t contribute anything to anything. “
With the help of a professional, he accepted the idea of entering the hospital and leaving there, for the singer everything was like being reborn, according to his words. “It’s not nice to be locked up, but there was no one else. In January I locked myself up in the Parque Clinic, in Parque Leloir. Look: I recently read a sentence by David Lebón that seemed perfect to me: When you take cocaine, the soul packs up and leaves.”He said in the same interview.
The presence of Otero on stage, always giving up life, in songs like “La bifurcada” or “Moscato, pizza y fainá”.
He will later add that he became aware of his “dependency structure” and in the midst of the turbulence he defined what he wanted for his future. “I started slowly. I have become aware of my addiction structure. I have read a lot. One day, kneeling on the bed, I wrote a song for my wife. And I realized that Memphis belonged to a distant past. And that she could have faced a race alone ”.
Precisely that solo career interrupted 10 years ago with a fatal accident on the Rosario-Córdoba highway.
CJL
Source: Clarin
