Yes
His deepest memory: the street, the sandy scene of his childhood in his native Alvarado, Veracruz. Being and not on dry land. “I have gone through life a little unconsciously: searching with my eyes covered, knowing it was there but not knowing where.”
I swam across crazy lagoons,
I grew up with sounds and prayers,
looking at life only in the reflections.
Traditional sounds, verses and songs fed his sensitivity. At the age of 9, he arrived with his family to the Country Club neighborhood in Mexico City. Of the scant memory of his father, Don Manuel, there is one that is endearing as a teenager: the gift of his first guitar: “Since then I have been making songs, with my insecurity to go out into the world and talk to others.” As in other colonies and neighborhoods, he would get together with young people to play and sing in the streets or parks, but he preferred solitary intimacy with his guitar and creating his own songs. “I have always been unsociable. It was easier to make songs than to look for others. I came to song because of that need to communicate.”
The song as a literary and also existential fact. His reserved nature did not prevent him from approaching an extroverted Jaime López, in Prepa 5 in the 70s. Fed up with the porn attacks of the time, one day he entered, as if seeking refuge, into a classroom where a theater group was rehearsing.
One of them had a guitar, he sang, he acted. It caught my attention. Seeing him, what he did made it easy for me and no, he made it look easy. Seeing him for the first time on stage, which is his element; the musical ritual was key.
A “friendship-workshop” that germinated surprising songs and albums an old love (1978) and Sessions with Emilia (1980).
When listening to the group La Peña Móvil at the Arena México, he liked their attitude and musical quality. Following them, he arrived at La Peña del Nagual. “I have always been a hippie at heart, because that is how life surprised me.”
Proud of the Jarocha sound, he integrated rock and blues that he listened to with Jaime and friends from Country Blues, named after López. Sessions with Emilia It generated criticism among folklore purists, but, without Roberto considering himself a “political animal,” some time later he noticed that songs like “El Huerto,” “Mi Libertad,” “Satisfaga sus Desires,” or “Take Your Comic Out of Sight” expressed strong criticism of a political nature.
Regarding the rock art movement, he considered himself wild: “Rock art is sophisticated, I am much wilder. The little wooden guitar that Rodrigo said is a very sophisticated instrument, with cultural history, traditions, tunings and ways of playing.”
Roberto rescued from the rock the conviction of staying outside the industry that takes success with the loss of creative freedom: “I never had aspirations of reaching the big industry; I knew I would have to do other things. I also knew that there are other means for the insistence of that personal work.”
Indelible in their formation: León Chávez Teixeiro, his beloved Rockdrigo González, Eblen Macari, Armando Rosas, José Cruz, among others; I admired his communicative capacity, the precision of his message and the validity of his work.
The one who sings goes looking for someone thirsty to pour his empty glass on.
Sequins (1982), Here (1988), flower of power (1991), albums that reflect intense searches in a Kafkaesque sensation of incompleteness, from a modesty of being brilliant without separating one’s feet from reality. Mother Mesoamerica (2000) and Alvaraderías (2004) reflect the maturity of these existential reflections.
They tried to educate me as a little man; They didn’t make it. Mother Mesoamerica It was recovering and understanding those women in history that have to do with my culture and training. Then I did Alvaraderíaswhich is the counterpart, a male album.
After being born old
In 2011 he recorded his album For nowwith a “new son alvaradeño” flavor.
Until his death in 2021, he continued to be insistent and supportive. Today we applaud her daughter, Julia González Larson, a young and talented voice who, Rodrigo de Oyarzabal suggested: “will undoubtedly remind the nostalgic of Emilia of those famous sessions,” but a new and particular voice in Mexican female singing.
Roberto González (Alvarado, Veracruz, 1952-Mexico City, 2021) left with his trust placed in the new generations.
I am in a moment of reflection and they are in a moment of creation, of life, of drive. They go very quickly; If I want to be with them, I have to quicken my pace. It has been very pleasant to play with musicians of new generations; That teaches things.
In each performance he always showed what he had learned. From this window he left us an assessment of himself as a human being.
There is a human relationship, which I lacked for much of my life and in recent years I have been recovering. They are reflections of now; relationships that help me continue learning, although it is not easy to learn when I am old, but I have been able to be a little more human.
*Author of Song of fire
