Palo Pandolfo, in March 2017, on one of the stages of the Lollapalooza. Photo Ferdinand of the Order
The red plate of Chronicle announces the death of Pandolfo stick. One of the editors of this newspaper, Eduardo Slusarczuk, asks us to wait because he doesn’t believe it: they had been classmates. “It must be a fake,” he said with emotion. Denying the horrible is a defense mechanism.
A fake news with Palo Pandolfo? Rare. It was more desire than anything else. Exactly one year ago, Roberto “Palo” Pandolfo, leader of Don Cornelio and the ZoneLos Visitantes and, recently, La Hermandad, his last group with whom he had recorded the albums A hug Y Transformationin addition to the live triptych flight of the dragon. He was 56 years old.
The sadness was such that it never took so long for an official commemorative plaque to appear on the scene. Immediately, in addition to the plaque they put where Palo died, neighbors and fans intervened with phrases taken from his songs. There today you can read “Each person is measured by the size of his heart.”
Palo Pandolfo possessed volcanic energy. Clarin archive photo
That day, followers and friends improvised an altar with flowers, candles and leaves with the musician’s song lyrics.
Three months after his unexpected death, his latest album called servant. A very sad album, but even that “premonition” wouldn’t go well with sticks.
unexpected death
He was shot dead while walking down the street. Diaz Velez Avenue at 5200, Almagro. A building manager said it “collapsed” as he passed the door of a Banco Frances branch. At first it was believed that it came from the bank. The block keeper clarified that no.
A very young Palo Pandolfo. Photo Facu Soto / Kindness
“He fell and lost consciousness”the man told us. It was 2:25 pm In vain attempts were made to revive the medical staff who had arrived on the spot aboard a SAME ambulance stationed at Durand Hospital, just 150 meters from the scene.
The plaque dedicated to Pandolfo, right where it has faded, reads: “1964-Always “. Signing of the Legislature of the City of Buenos Aires.
Someone wrote on the makeshift altar: “Thank you for changing my life.” One of the most important words that can be dedicated to someone.
How can we talk about Palo leaving out his usual Balkan energy? In fact, he has been a soloist from the very beginning, long before deciding on his own and despite the company of his iconic bands. Because of his constitutive and essential condition as a soloist, every time he performed live he could sing pieces by Don Cornelio or by the Visitors. After all, they were all his problems.
Palo Pandolfo and a rag with “Patria o muerte”, the album that advanced the sound of “Nevermind”, three years later. Clarin archive photo
A pioneer with the head of a ganapán. The real winner of undera guy who realized he could make a living from music without having to become a millionaire, an equation that ended him and that’s how he lived from music from start to finish.
That day, just a year ago, Palo went for a walk in the Parque Centenario area. He was undocumented and only had the keys to the place where he was staying for those days.
“Someone anonymous, via a fan, is texting me saying that Palo had fallen on the street,” he said. Russian German AlperowiczPandolfo’s manager. “He coincided with the fact that two hours earlier he had told me that he was going to walk to the Park. I live in Florida, Vicente López, and I start looking for people around. I call Luis Emilio, Palo’s nephew, who lives nearby, and it is he who ends up recognizing him “.
He had made himself known in the feverish decade of the 1980s with Don Cornelio and La Zona.
Roberto Andres Pandolfo. Once he died, he was the cover of Rolling Stone.
He had made himself known in the feverish decade of the 1980s with Don Cornelio and The Zonea band formed in his Flores neighborhood together with the guitarist Alessandro Varelathe bass player Federico Ghazarosian and the drummer Claudio Fernandez.
With Cornelio there were two albums. The first was produced by Andres Calamarowhich gave him a pop sound with everlasting hits like She will come, Chinese teacups Y The rosary on the wall.
Country or death it would be the next step for a group that had become an outsized voice. The logical expectation, however, would be far from a guaranteed satisfaction. Country or death it was the album that advanced the sound of what would be heard three years later it does not matter, the blinding Nirvana album. Could there have been a Flores-Floresta-Seattle connection?
The 90s arrive for Palo at the helm of a trio that then expands: Los Visitantes.
In a presentation to the mythical Mediomundo varietyAmong the audience was a Fito Páez, still a Pajueran, who listened to Pandolfo and his possessed boys. Pandolfo – so much like Joe Strummer – laughed like a hyena. That night he announced “the fucking success” and sang she will come as if the choir had holes in it.
The 90s arrive for Palo at the head of a trio that then expands: Visitors. Cornelio had separated a year earlier. With a brighter and more naive aesthetic, the cover of his debut album, universal health (1993), marked a turning point and Palo experienced success, had a contract with a multinational record company and came to play in a theater in via Corrientes.
Los Visitantes served Pandolfo to give himself all tastes, he went from pop to tango and from there he went to the countryside to write – folklorically – about sunrises and horizons, without neglecting irreverence like that brilliant chorus that repeated the syllables “pi- Papua “.
Probably Spiritang (1994), again with Calamaro in the role of artistic producer, was the best album of this new stage which also included the remarkable Maderite.
Eventually he decided to truly go solo in the menacing 2001 with through dreams, a jewel that has gone unnoticed in the social context of the country. That “debut” was accompanied by guests like Fito Páez, Federico Gil Solá and the Super Topi.
In his “debut” as a soloist, in “Through Dreams”, he had as guests Fito Páez, Federico Gil Solá and the Super Ratones.
In a less happy role as an interpreter, he later bounced back Whimwhere he sang songs by Spinetta, Silvio Rodríguez, Radiohead, Bob Marley, Mano Negra and David Bowie.
In recent years he has curated Transformationwhere he was lucky enough to attack it -relatively- with a powerful diffusion cut called Morel.
Palo Pandolfo – may some god have it in glory – made it transformation a danceable rock record made with its ease for the chorus, a gift which, curiously, resisted since the days of she will come (Don Cornelio, 1987).
Then, in a self-celebration, in a sort of homage to himself, he drank the light of all colors, singing the songs of his entire career in the triptych The flight of the dragon.
In one of the last interviews they did with him, he said: “The best musician is the one who becomes a better person through music”
POS
Source: Clarin
