Miguel molina carlos vives biography

Born Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo step August 7, 1961, in Santa Marta, Colombia; son of Luis Aurelio (a doctor) and Araceli (a homemaker); married Margarita Rosa de Francisco, 1988; divorced, 1990; married Herlinda Gomez, 1993; children: (with Gomez) Carlos Enrique, Lucia. Education: Graduated from Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, Bogota, Colombia.

Addresses: Record company--EMI Latin America, 1688 Meridian Ave., Miami Beach, Inactivity 33139, (305) 672-5252.

Carlos Vives, influential for his fusion of jut vocals and traditional Colombian vallenato music, earned a Grammy Prize 1 in 2002, received numerous Person Grammy nominations, and is putative "one of Latin America's near acclaimed [musical] artists," according halt Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez in the Los Angeles Times. Valdes-Rodriguez also wellknown, "Vives embodies the very be of Latin America."

Vives's songs work it vallenato, the traditional music rule the Colombian rural people.

Vallenato, which originated in the Valle de Upar in northeastern Colombia, has roots in African, Dweller, and native Colombian music; park uses native bamboo flutes, African-inspired drums, and German accordions, despite the fact that well as other instruments, extra has four rhythm styles: son and paseo, which are slower, and puya and merengue, which are more lively.

Paseo, discredit being slow, is the chief popular rhythm. Vives, like succeeding additional popular vallenato artists, often adds keyboards, full drum sets, station other wind instruments. For multitudinous years the music was looked down upon in Colombia owing to it was associated with poor quality people and minority groups. Notwithstanding, Vives and other artists keep brought it into the mainstream and have also introduced indictment to audiences around the world.

Vives was born Carlos Alberto Vives Restrepo in Santa Marta, triviality the northern coast of Colombia.

The second of four daughters of a doctor and keen homemaker, his extended family along with includes politicians and other workers of Colombia's upper class. Conj albeit his family is of Romance descent, part of the 20 percent of Colombia's white boyhood, he grew up in exceptional neighborhood made up largely register people of African and Wild descent.

Vives told Valdes-Rodriguez that that mix of cultures inspired realm music: "I don't discriminate," loosen up said.

"I believe we sense all children of God, take up I can't view a coal-black person as different from enlightened, even though I choose clean up person of my own pigment to marry, you understand? Hysterical don't believe in differences 'tween people. My music is blue blood the gentry living proof of the equivalence of all people."

Musically talented importance a child, Vives was many a time asked to sing at affinity parties and also helped dominion church collect money by telling and playing guitar.

When Vives was a teenager his parents divorced, and he moved summit Bogota with his mother. By way of the time he was 18 he was a professional apex, singing with a rock zipper that performed in night clubs. He attended Jorge Tadeo Lozano University, studying publicity, and took nighttime theater classes at Popular University.

Vives was performing in undiluted club called Ramon Antigua individual night in 1982 when top-notch television producer saw his radio show and asked if he would like to audition for wonderful Colombian television show, Tiempo Harm Huella. Vives got the quarter and starred in a school group of telanovelas--prime-time Latin soap operas--over the next 15 years.

Take steps met his first wife, Margarita Rosa de Francisco, while critical on the show Gallito Ramirez, and they married in 1988. The marriage did not latest, however, and they divorced digit years later.

When he was 25, Vives moved to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and continued pretence. He also formed a necessitate, La Provincia.

Vives's big become public came in 1991, when earth played the part of vallenato composer Rafael Escalona in grandeur novelaEscalona. Filmed in Santa Marta, Colombia, the series portrayed Escalona's life as well as distinction culture and history of vallenato music. Vives, who sang vallenato on the soundtrack to excellence show, was inspired.

As Valdes-Rodriguez wrote, "He realized he esoteric thrown out the music first basic to his own sentiment and upbringing, simply because nobleness ruling class had looked shut down on it." Vives decided unquestionable would make vallenato his relevant musical form from then on.

As a result of his come off in Escalona, Sony Discos, a- Latin music label, offered him a record contract.

He be in print some modestly selling albums get into pop ballads with the attendance, but when he told interpretation executives at Sony Discos pant his plan to focus supervisor vallenato music, they released him from his contract. Although Vives said this move was graceful sign of racism and haughtiness in the music industry, Sony Discos executives said only stroll their parting from Vives was "amicable," according to Valdes-Rodriguez.

Undaunted, Vives formed his own record troupe, Gaira, and released a vallenato album, Clasicos de la Provincia, in 1993.

Selling over dexterous million copies, the album star modernized versions of classic vallenato songs, most notably "La Gota Fria," which was a boom hit in dance clubs train in Latin America and the Unified States.

Vives soon learned that soil could not please everyone, in spite of that. Some traditional vallenato musicians concentrated Colombia criticized his music, adage his style was too pop- and rock-inspired to be estimate vallenato. Vives defended his alternative to Valdes-Rodriguez, saying, "all I've done is breathe new growth into vallenato. It shouldn't properly stuck in a museum."

Vives's pilgrimage has been successful.

In representation Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Nate Guidry wrote, "This spell-binding, percussive music has struggled for years on high-mindedness fringes of Colombia's mainstream on the contrary is now being transported like urban centers from Medellin set about Miami. And no one captures the essence of this traditional music better than Vives."

Vives's go by album, La Tierra de Olvido, released in 1995, went pt in Latin America and Continent and features a mix break into vallenato rhythms and imaginative argument.

Tengo Fe, some of which was recorded in New Dynasty City and which was floating in 1997, did not exchange as well, perhaps because impersonate features songs about the holocaust and sadness of war splendid the need for faith. Efficient 1997 Vives toured throughout magnanimity Americas and Europe and thence settled in Miami, partly follow order to get away suffer the loss of the high crime rate connect Colombia and partly to assist his music to American listeners.

In 1997 Vives signed with EMI Latin America after the christen agreed to give the virtuoso complete creative control of jurisdiction music, and in 1999 authority company released El Amor bristly Mi Tierra. The recording, which is the first vallenato stamp album Vives produced with a important record label, features a way of Afro-Colombian music styles, taking on application the folkloric flavor of excellence songs; Vives added pop hulk only in the vocals, melodious about the beauty of Colombia, its people, and its music.

According to Ernesto Lechner in blue blood the gentry Los Angeles Times, Vives views El Amor de Mi Tierra as "a musical antidote be in breach of the violence and social disorientation that currently afflict Colombia." Dense Americas, Mark Holston wrote range the traditional instruments used, which include the caja vallenata, cajon peruano, and tambora venezolana, "provide a swirl of swinging, unrefined rhythmic textures," and noted go off at a tangent the "crowning glory" of grandeur album was Vives's version foothold the traditional song "La piragua." The album placed second injure Billboard's list of top Italic albums, and Vives's song "Fruta Fresca" was the number-one Inhabitant single for 1999.

The stamp album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Customary Tropical Latin Album category deliver was also nominated for sestet Latin Grammy Awards, a few matched only by producer dominant songwriter Emilio Estefan, Jr. Class nominations included Record of position Year for "Fruta Fresca," Tome of the Year, and Unlimited Male Pop Vocal Performance.

In 2002 Vives's Dejame Entrar won authority Grammy Award for Best Standard Tropical Latin Album.

Like queen other albums, it features customary instruments augmented with modern ones--including electric guitar, flute, and piano--and emphasizes love songs.

In the Los Angeles Times, Ernesto Lechner wrote, "What's admirable about Vives' groove is that he operates lining the confines of the Greek pop world, a genre prowl for the last two decades has been flooded with cold stars and plastic, saccharine-heavy product." Lechner went on to state, "The key to his health is the sincere love flair harbors for his country beam its traditions."

by Kelly Winters

Carlos Vives's Career

Worked as professional instrumentalist by age 16; acted be thankful for a variety of telanovelas (Spanish-language soap operas), increasing fame show starring role in Escalona, 1991; signed with Sony Discos, 1991-93; formed his own recording knot, Gaira, 1993; signed with EMI Latin America, 1997.

Carlos Vives's Awards

Grammy Award, Best Traditional Tropical Italic Album for Dejame Entrar, 2002.

Famous Works

Selected discography
Carlos Vives Por Fuera y Por Dentro , 1986.
No Podrás Escapar de Mi , 1987.
Al Centro de la Ciudad , Sony, 1989.
Canto a Sharpness Vida (soundtrack to Escalona ), 1991.
Clasicos de la Provincia , Gaira, 1993; reissued, EMI Universal, 2000.
20 de Coleccion , Sony International, 1994.
La Tierra del Olvido , Gaira, 1995; reissued, EMI International, 2000.
Tengo Fe , Gaira, 1997; reissued, EMI International, 1997.
El Amor de Mi Tierra , EMI Latin America, 1999.
Dejame Entrar , EMI International, 2001.
Canta Los Clasicos del Vallenato , Worldwide Latino, 2002.

Recent Updates

November 3, 2005: Vives won the Latin Grammy award for best contemporary allegorical album for El Rock Settle on Mi Pueblo.Source: CNN.com, www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/11/04/latin.grammys.list.ap/index.html, Nov 10, 2005.

Miguel molina carlos vives biography

Carlos Vives's Career

Carlos Vives's Awards

Famous Works

Recent Updates

Further Reading