LIBERPRESS SONG AWARD 2019

Born April 11, 1936 in Mexico City. Since he was a child, he enjoyed music and singing and in 1964 he started to sing in public. In 1968, while a student at the University Center for Film Studies at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he was part of the group that made the documentary El grito, directed by Leobardo López, a piece of work that recorded the whole student movement process in 1968 in response to State oppression. Since then, using his music he has stood up for all the democratic, revolutionary community protests and in defense of human rights, both in Mexico and abroad. He worked with his friend and co-author of many songs, Álvaro Guzmán Gómora, until 2000, the year he passed away. He sang in El Salvador, USA, Chile and all over Europe. In Spain he sang in the Basque Country and in Barcelona at the Barnasants Festival on many occasions. His records include La piel (with Alvaro Guzmán), in 1969; Ponciano Flores, in 1974; La vieja gorda y callada, in 1974; Canciones (with different authors), from 1979 until 1980; Se va la vida, compañera, from 1979 until 1980; La fundición, in 1989; Memoria (for the Zapatista Army of National Liberation), in 1999; Barcelona (recorded during the closing ceremony at the 2007 Barnasants Festival), in 2010, etc. He has been the subject of different books, such as El cantor con el sol en el sombrero, by Jorge Gasca Salas, in 2018, and of documentaries, like Iba volando, by Berenice Úbeda, in 2010, or Mujer. Se va la vida, compañera, by Mariana Rivera, in 2018.