Hugo Monzón, eight decades of love for Tarija - La Razón |News from Bolivia and El Mundo

It seems that it is a gift that I have since childhood, because my mother told me that she was with her hands in her pocket when she went for a walk outside the home and was whistling ".He has just released his 80 years and, despite being delicate in health, when he begins to remember all this time dedicated to music, singer -songwriter Hugo Monzón begins to rejuvenate and remember that he has dedicated himself to creating compositions to sing to life,To his life.

Cuequita for my mother, cuequita del heart

That has sprouted from the soul with sweet songs.

Where will that old woman, that love star

That lights down my way when the afternoon takes the sun.

"Who without fl a, yoer who without fl a".When walking near his house, with his hands in his pocket and cheerful, he whistled and sang what was perhaps his first composition, although he really wanted to say: "Who is the one who whistles, I am the one who whistles".

With the support of the Ministry of Tourism of the Municipal Autonomous Government of Tarija, the photojournalist Richard Arana - intention of photographers without borders - arrives on time to the house of Don Hugo Monzón Cardozo, who was born on April 1, 1941 in Quebrada Honda, provinceAvilés, from the department of Tarija.

A very happy stream

He sang a song

And a beautiful sheet metal

Washed clothes with great determination.

His house was the germ that made his love for music arise, since his father, José Manuel Monzón Flores, interpreted the guitar, the charango, the mandolin, the accordion, the quena and other instruments.However, his father opposed Hugo doing the same."My dad didn't want me to play the guitar.‘You don't have to learn those instruments because people who play guitar are very dedicated to drinking, it becomes drunk’ ”.While I didn't want to do so, I didn't prohibit him either, taking into account the amount of instruments at home."When I saw myself play the guitar, I just listened to me, but not of good will," he recalls with a laugh.

He came just singing

On the banks of the Guadalquivir

Lost in darkness

That they already announced their soon.

To ensure that he continued studying, Hugo emigrated from his beloved Quebrada Honda, "a corner on the border with Argentina", to live in San Roque, one of the first neighborhoods of the city of Tarija.There, every afternoon he went out with his friends to play the guitar sitting on the sidewalk of a house.

Two rositas and a carnation

Three fl orcitas of living

How to adorn my vergel how they cheer my existence

“All the compositions that I make are born from a matter of life, of something that has happened to me.I translate them into music and lyrics, even though I don't know how to read or write in a pentagram ”.One of those creations is the schoolgirl, in honor of a lover she had in her adolescence, with whom she looked before she entered the Liceo de Señoritas Campero, she was always dressed in a white overall.

A very playful breeze has wrapped body as it passes

And when looking at your overall, he told me that you are a collegiate

The sun that already looked at you, of jealousy did not want to light

He noticed that I loved you, that I will never forget you

From the San Roque neighborhood, where he founded the Campero club with his friends, his passion for music matured little by little.As a consequence, in 1966 he founded the Los Arrieros Group, and on April 15, 1967, in the Sesquicentennial of the Battle of La Tablada, he created the Montoneros de Méndez.

Linda Sanroqueñita

Of beautiful eyes, beautiful per fi l

Vení, let's dance the cane

Branch happy here Pa’llí

Hugo Monzón, Luis Aldana, Nilo Soruco, Ciscar Galo, Norma Gálvez and Vicente Mealla since then produced 25 albums, which included presentations in almost the entire country, as well as abroad.Cueca de Vargas, the stream in love, looking at the carnival, cuequita for my mother and the schoolgirl are some of the songs that Monzón left as a sample of his sensitive spirit.

"Many songs came out and most successfully, but the greatest thing was to die singing, a cueca for which I was inspired by the death of my older brother, in the words he said before he died," explains the composer.

I want to die singing at dawn

My couplet is ending

I'm going very far to not come back

Perhaps Monzón's most listened composition was interpreted even by the Argentine singer Chaqueño Palavecino, who asked him to write a second part, which the musician did in 24 hours, always recalling and paying tribute to his brother.

I ask you, don't forget me, love, love

Since in the burial

Remed silence and calm the pain

So, as if remembrances returned the energy that the years took, Hugo takes a violin to interpret one of his favorite songs.Then take the guitar, at a bit a little, review the notes and start interpreting, with the same passion of always, I want to die singing.

Those tears of your eyes

Those seas of compassion

Do not cry my farewell

I ask them for all resignation

The disease has caused you to stop creating songs as before.“It seems that after having abandoned the Montonos de Méndez I have entered depression, I am with treatment all this time.All that has reduced my ability to write and make music, but I love it.Every day I have to listen to radio.I still grab the guitar, but I don't get those things before, because everything has its time, don't you see? ”.

However, Hugo Monzón, one of Bolivia's most prolific composers, returns to take his guitar to continue singing to life, his octogenarian life.