David’s voice has something magical about it. Singing in Spanish, he resounds -with a clear tenor register- the color of a bluesman. The same swing flourishes in his fingertips on the guitar fretboard. His vibrato, his stretched strings, his pauses and silences, are a correlate of his singing, of that sensual flow with which he knew how to surf life, art, music.
As a guitarist, he is a fine goldsmith who detects the breath of the melody. That’s why each of his solos is a song in itself, with an aura that opens up spaces.
Such energies and gifts brought him here, to his first seven decades, with a baggage of songs, places, friends, stories, cities.
Get on the lightning at last
Beyond the bands he led, Lebón’s contribution in all cases was a key plus. In Pappo’s Blues (bass and rhythm guitar), Billy Bond and La Pesada del Rock and Roll (guitar), Human Color (drums and choirs), Spirit (keyboards), Los gato (voice and guitar) his collaborations with Sui Géneris, Claudio Gabis, and more here with Enanitos Verdes, Fito Páez, Alejandro Lerner, Julia Zenko, Andrés Calamaro, Spinetta soloist, Pedro Aznar –among others– their presence added an “esmowing” (as the old gin commercial said) that illuminated the rest.
A separate paragraph deserves two formations that had the “Russian” as a founding and essential member: Pescado Rabioso and Serú Girán. He was thus co-team of the two greats of national rock. And in that conjunction, the synergy unleashed storms of art, hymns.
On the street of sensation
King David was blessed with an unusual flair for vocal polychromy. His vocal harmonies in certain songs achieved what turned them into hymns, that unmistakable Lebonian texture.
Technically, his musical training may have had to do not so much with his birthplace, in He was born in Ituzaingó, Buenos Aires, but it was not there where his relationship with the guitar took hold, but in Miami, where the family moved, prior to adolescence. There, David trained as a guitarist and joined some groups when he was still a minor. He had to resort – the legend says – to tricks to be able to play in venues where, by US law, he cannot remain a minor.
Precocious one-man band: bassist, drummer, keyboardist, as well as an enormous composerone day he released his own LP, titled simply with his name and surname, in 1973. He dedicates a song to Luis and proves to be as subtle for hard rock as visceral for ballads.
1950-1952 The sacred years?
Almost like a local analogy of the famous “27 Club” that in Saxon rock brings together musicians who died at that age -Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse and Brian Jones- in Argentina there has been a curious case related to the years in which the main referents of vernacular rock were born.
The data includes, of course, David Lebón, born in 1952, just like Nito Mestre (3-8-52) and extremely close to Leon Gieco (20-11-51) Norberto “Pappo” Napolitano (10-3-50) Luis Alberto Spinetta (1-23-50) Leon Gieco (11-20-51) and a particular coincidence that verges on the miraculous: Charlie Garcia (10-23-51) and Federico Mora (10-23-51): that is, the exact same date.
Thus, for lovers of quasi-astral coincidences, here is another Argentine mystery that involves no less than seven of the founders, in their own way and at their time, of the local chapter of the music that changed the world.
let go rock and roll
Along with Pappo and Claudio Gabis, from Manal, David Lebón is also a pioneer as a great national architect of powerful, Zeppelinian, overwhelming riffs. Of those he cultivated several in Polifemo (1976), his band, from which he emerged as a maker of guitar blocks, nerve and structure of powerful rock and roll.
That overflowing band was completed with two other historical heroes of the so-called “national rock”: Rinaldo Rafanelli and Juan Rodríguez. Who, in turn, used to complete the formation of Sui Géneris when the founding duo performed live.
Perhaps that frequent and fundamental contact between Charly and David (they have been friends for years, almost brothers) was the basis for the summit meeting that would come later, in the formation of an Argentine superband.
I will be
Finally, four powers greeted each other, and David was one of them. The meeting with Charly brought a dazzling chapter to local rock. In it, the guitarist, the composer, the singer, the lyricist, the genius who rubbed the lamp and made one gem after another sprout: I’m going to a thousand, Cosmigonón, Saint Francis and the Wolf, Modulated frequency, dog night, how much longer will it take, encounter with the devil, standing in the middle of life, speed face, Waiting to be born
It was 1978 and the “Russian” in its splendor contributed the breath of ballad and rock and roll that makes Serú Girán’s identity. With García (as before with Spinetta) an inexhaustible creative duo was conglomerated.
time is fast
In 1980 David released his second solo album: Nayla. It was going to be double, but the record companies rejected that option. Even with Serú active, he appealed to his then teammates Aznar and Moro to record it. Rinaldo Rafanelli (ex Sui Géneris) and Diego Rapoport (luxury jazz pianist who played with practically all the greats of rock) joined. Two years later, with Serú Girán now separated, he began a string of his own albums with songs that never stopped flowing.
In time is fast (1982) one of his most remembered LPs, David returned to take charge of all the instruments in the bases. The cover illustration was a gift from his friend Luis Alberto, who reoffended: not everyone knows it, but Skinny had already made his debut as an illustrator with the “little clown” on the cover of Almendra’s first album.
The song that gives the album its name is so powerful, and it takes on magical destinies, like Mercedes Sosa’s version.
I will always be
With the advent of democracy in Argentina, Lebón released an album that brought two hits representative of its two facets: the ballad I want to give you my love and the furious bad boys rock: a plate advance undress (1984) where “el Ruso” would settle his debt with the pure rock and roll that he had brought since the time of Polifemo. Those who expected to hear him rock furiously and those proverbial string pulls in the middle of speed, celebrated this album very much.
The eighties continued with the same hyperproductive Lebón, they arrived If it’s any use (1985) 7×7 (1986) I can never reach you (1987) and contacts (1989). In 1991 he came out new mornings and from there, a vast parenthesis
The 21st century found a Lebón in musical pause making records every seven years. It’s time to I dreamt it (2002) Deja vu (2009) and supreme encounter (2016). Thus we came to a plan of musical collaborations with colleagues. Under the slogan of trying to make a summary of his career, the first volume of Lebón & Co. But, as the production of the project, only one album fell short. The result: volume 2 is about to come out.
In this sequence, David goes through his classics accompanied by different colleagues from all times, generations and styles; artists who, in turn, were and are his admirers, in some cases, personal friends, such as Charly García himself, with whom they sing We will see each other again. In addition, among others, this list includes Fito Páez, Sandra Mihanovich, Fabiana Cantilo, Julieta Venegas, Andrés Calamaro, Eruca Sativa, Ricardo Mollo, Nayla Lebón, Skay Beilinson, Knowing Russia, Rosario Ortega, Hugo Fattoruso, Soledad, Kevin Johansen, Juanes , Diego Torres, Abel Pintos, Emmanuel Horvilleur, Pedro Aznar and Carlos Vives.
The same multiplicity and adhesion of the “Russian” Lebón accounts for the affection and artistic appreciation that he has among colleagues. They and the longtime followers of this artist-orchestra will undoubtedly toast him this Wednesday the 5th, when the enormous multi-instrumentalist, composer, poet and singer-songwriter completes his 70 laps around the sun.
