{"product_id":"vinylaudiocafe-benitez-valencia-impossible-love-songs-from-sixties-quito-769791980419","title":"Benítez \u0026 Valencia – Impossible Love Songs From Sixties Quito","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e2x Vinyl 12\"\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGonzalo Benitez and Luis Alberto Valencia were kingpins of the musica nacional movement in Ecuador - Check them out on the cover, on a rooftop in Quito's Old Town, surveying their dominion - In 1970, when Valencia collapsed onstage during a performance of the yaravi Desesperacion — 'My heart is already in ashes' — and died four days later, aged 52, his coffin was carried through those city streets on the shoulders of his fans. They began singing as a duo in their mid-teens. During twenty-eight years together they recorded more than six hundred songs, for Discos Ecuador, Nacional, Granja, Ortiz, Rondador, Onix, Fuente, Real, Tropical, Fadisa, RCA Victor — and of course CAIFE.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eTheir exquisitely romantic harmonising is a sublime blend of collected forbearance and abject self-annihilation, underpinned and elaborated by the heart-piercing, improvisatory guitar-playing of Bolivar Ortiz. Effectively the third member of the group. 'El Pollo' sets the tone and intensity for everything that follows: listen to his soloing at the start of our opener, Lamparilla.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMusically a pasillo — a cross between a Viennese waltz and the indigenous yaravi rhythm — Lamparilla draws its verses from a poem by Luz Martinez from Riobamba, written in 1918 when she was 15, under the influence of Baudelaire and Mallarme. Another pasillo here, Sombras is one of the best-loved songs in the musica nacional canon, setting lines about undercover sex and loss by the Mexican poet Maria Pren, which were considered pornographic on publication in 1911.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd Benitez \u0026amp; Valencia looked back still further, to the indigenous roots of Ecuadorian music, as the key to its future. Carnaval de Guaranda is their take on a song dating back to the era of the Mitimaes, a broad group of Bolivian tribes conquered by the Incas and displaced to Ecuador. 'Impossible love of mine \/ I love you for being impossible \/ Who loves what is impossible \/ Is the truest lover.'\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLovingly presented in a gatefold sleeve with spot-gloss, and printed inners, with stunning photos and expert notes. Excellent sound, drawn from original tapes, by way of Abbey Road, D\u0026amp;M and Pallas.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vinyl Audio Café","offers":[{"title":"2021 - Honest Jon's Records \/ 769791980419 \/ HJRLP83","offer_id":54305952694585,"sku":"GCU08","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0742\/4180\/2553\/files\/769791980419.jpg?v=1785855978","url":"https:\/\/vinylaudiocafe.com\/products\/vinylaudiocafe-benitez-valencia-impossible-love-songs-from-sixties-quito-769791980419","provider":"Vinyl Audio Café","version":"1.0","type":"link"}