Why did Óscar Avilés never record an album with his son? The “Bolerista of America”, Ramón Avilés, speaks

In life, the Peruvian guitarist Oscar Aviles He was never able to record an album with his son Ramón. Ten years after the death of the Creole musician, also known as the First Guitar of Peru, his son joined his voice with that of his father thanks to artificial intelligence, creating “Avilés: essence of criollismo”, a new album of Creole music that He rescues classic songs from various composers and what he calls “the essence” of the genre that characterizes the Avilés’ style.

This new production comes on the centenary of the birth of Óscar Avilés, as well as the 489th anniversary of the city of Lima. “This season makes me remember the glory days of boleros and my father, days when songs animated the capital city”mentions Ramón Avilés in an interview with El Comercio.

Ramon Aviles

The legacy of Óscar Avilés falls on the hundreds of composers and performers who in life knew the maestro who accompanied other great artists of Creole music, but also on his own family. An example of this is Ramón Avilés, who throughout his career stood out as the well-known Bolerista of America and continues to this day composing songs and disseminating the work of his father.

His career took off in the 1960s, when his talent caught the attention of Sono-Radio, a key record label in promoting Peruvian music. It was here that Ramón Avilés began to shape his unique style, which fused the tradition of Creole music with contemporary influences, a mix that was no coincidence.

“I was Creole, but I changed my style to boleros, something for which I am recognized and remembered to this day. I did it because I once played a bolero in a hotel and a businessman approached me and said: ‘Why don’t you play boleros in the theater around here?’ I told him respectfully: ‘No sir, I am Creole’, then he told me: ‘If you don’t sing me a bolero I won’t pay you.’ “This is how the career of El Bolerista de América began.”says Avilés Jr.

To this day, his voice maintains the ability to transmit deep emotions, the “essence,” as he calls the feeling found within each song. The successes that support him are songs like “Resignación”, “Cabellitos de mi madre” or the remembered “Where are you Yolanda?”, which he likes to sing so much on and off stage.

“That song was composed by Manuel ‘El Zorro’ Jiménez Fernández, but there was a problem: he was from IEMPSA, the competition of my record label. But he gave it to me because the bolero players he worked with didn’t give him any credit. So I sang it and it hit the radio very hard. I remember him telling me that the company manager called him and yelled at him: ‘How come you gave it to the competition?!’ He only responded with a simple: ‘No one here wanted to touch her.’ “He was a teacher”says the bolero player.

Aviles vs Aviles

During the peak period of boleros, the Sono-Radio record label, to which Ramón Avilés belonged, was in direct competition with companies such as El Virrey, MAG and the well-known Odeón del Perú and IEMPSA. The latter was the company to which his father, Óscar Avilés, belonged, with whom he competed musically.

“That was one of the reasons why we couldn’t record in the same studio.. We were direct competition, but that didn’t stop us from performing together as father and son because I grew up listening to their songs. That’s why it was very difficult to choose which songs would enter [en ‘Avilés: esencia del criollismo’]. “It was impossible to say no to any song in my father’s repertoire, but we had to do it,” says the singer.

A living image of these collaborations in life is the remembered serenade that Ramón Avilés dedicated to his father in the Creole music program hosted by the Peruvian singer Cecilia Barraza, “Mediodía Criollo”, in addition to other collaborations that were presented in that program where They played songs like “Carmen” or “Alma mia”.

Posthumous collaboration

Made at Rincón Studios and with the support of the Ministry of Culture, this album is a tribute to the legacy of Óscar Avilés and Peruvian composers such as Felipe Pinglo Alva, Pedro Miguel Arrese, Augusto Polo Campos and Luis Abelardo Núñez. Includes songs such as “Engañada”, “Limeño soy”, “Alma mia”, “Amelia”, “Lima de antaño”, “La flor del café” and other classics of Peruvian music that Avilés performed throughout his artistic career. .

“Once I recorded a waltz with my father in a tribute they did to me on Channel 7, that had great sentimental and paternal value for me to be able to do that with him. With that idea in mind, we seek to replicate that feeling on this new album,” explains Ramón Avilés, who maintained the frequent guitar introduction in his father’s songs as a basis for these new interpretations. “That was the primary idea and we recreated it with Víctor Reyes, the man who made them with my father for more than 50 years”Add.

This new production is now available on different platforms and features a selection of classic Creole waltz songs in the best style of the Avilés duo. “This was a longing of mine; I didn’t get it when he was alive, but now, thanks to technology, we can sing together. Never with the intention of surpassing him, because he is the great Óscar Avilés and I am his biggest fan”, he concludes.