• Exhibition The fascination for Nino Bravo grows 40 years after his death on the road

There is no karaoke in Spain where Noelia

's chords are

not played or unsuspecting people willing to shout

Nino Bravo's

Libre .

But, as happens with Whitney Houston and her

De ella I will always love you

, achieving it is impossible: the Valencian's voice is still inimitable and his songs, 49 years after his death, continue to resonate like hymns.

We all know the themes but we hardly know anything about Nino Bravo beyond the

tragic accident

in which he lost his life and elevated him to the

category of myth at the age of 28

.

That was discovered by a 12-year-old boy named

Ramiro Ledesma de Castro

when he accidentally found a CD of the singer's greatest hits in his house.

He began to investigate his life but found nothing,

the only published book on Nino Bravo had been out of print for years

and when the Internet came up he suffered another disappointment: just a couple of pages with poor quality photos.

Nino Bravo

became an obsession

that led him to create

A kiss and a flower,

the first web page dedicated to him and to publish, at the age of 38, his first authorized biography,

Voice and Heart

(Editorial Milenio), which he has written in their free time.

"Until now, no one had delved into the figure of Nino Bravo. I think he

is little recognized despite the fact that he is a legend

. It is quite incomprehensible," summarizes Ledesma, an economist and specialist in education at the Universae FP Institute in Murcia.

Since that childhood discovery he hasn't stopped listening to the songs of his idol, which he puts on full throttle in the car despite

his wife's being

fed up.

"He has to put up with it," he says, laughing.

His investigations led him to discover that, before

Luis Manuel (Manolo) Ferri

became Nino Bravo, he worked in a jewelry store, that he ended up as

a master diamond polisher

and that he upset his father when he insisted on singing.

He dreamed of a doctor son.

The book, full of anecdotes, reveals the origin of the song Noelia, which Augusto Algueró wrote inspired by

Noelia Afonso

, Miss Spain 1969 and Miss Europe 1970, with whom he had fallen in love (today Noelia is the millionaire owner of a complex of five stars in Tenerife).

It has also led him to establish a close relationship with the singer's family, especially with his widow and his two daughters.

Nino Bravo and his wife, Marie, with their daughter Amparo.Ninobravo.net

Amparo Martínez

(or

Marie

, as she is called at home), was so devastated by the death of her husband that she has always refused to give interviews or speak about him in public, but has agreed to write the foreword.

When Nino died on April 16, 1973 (his BMW crashed when he left a curve at the entrance to Villarrubuio, in Cuenca), his career had begun to explode.

He had achieved seven number 1s in three years and was beginning to catch up with Raphael and Julio Iglesias in Spain and South America.

Marie was 23 years old, had

a girl, Amparo, just over a year old, and was

pregnant with her second daughter, Eva.

"On that road everything went to hell. All our lives.

I had started to make money, we had the whole year closed with contracts in France, Belgium, Portugal...

I could have reached the height of Tom Jones or Frank Sinatra,

But it's all over."

Who speaks is

Manu Martínez

(74), brother-in-law, confidant and right-hand man of Nino Bravo, who worked as

the singer's

road manager .

He was the one who used to drive the car but that day he had stayed in Valencia doing some errands that his boss had entrusted to him.

Nino went to Madrid to promote two boys he had sponsored, the duo Humo, and his friend José Juesas accompanied them.

The car was automatic and did not have seat belts.

(at that time they did not exist), due to an oversight he left the curve and

rolled three times

.

Nino was taken by ambulance to Madrid but died.

His three companions were injured.

"I should have driven that day

. I wish I had been there," laments Manu, who acknowledges that the death of his brother-in-law has left him

with consequences for life.

Manu and Nino

toured Spain from end to end

many times.

They burned

three cars,

100,000 kilometers and skittles per year

.

He was driving and Nino slept in the back with a blanket.

Everything happened to them, anecdotes that he remembers with great humor, such as when the

Civil Guard, "of those from before, with a cape and three-cornered hat"

, stopped

them because they were looking

for El Lute, who had

escaped from the Puerto de Santa María Prison

.

"They pointed their guns at us but they recognized Nino and let us go. We were very scared," he recalls.

Or

the drinks with Miguel Ríos or Serrat,

who became very good friends, when they coincided in bowling.

the girls

(Nino was not very handsome but he was tall and with an attractive masculine voice), who rushed to ask him for autographs... "What a pity -he laments- no one thought of recording a live concert".

T

Cover of the book 'Nino Bravo Voice and Heart'.

Following the death of his brother-in-law,

Manu left music and returned to his old job in a lettering workshop

.

A massive concert in Valencia, in which the great stars of the time participated, such as

Julio Iglesias, Manolo Escobar, Víctor Manuel or Jaime Morey,

raised two million pesetas for Marie and her girls, who went ahead with the

royalties

that still generate the successes of Nino Bravo.

They also built, with the help of Ledesma, a

museum

in her hometown,

Aielo de Malferit

, with objects of the singer.

That's where his fans make a pilgrimage, many of them from Argentina or Chile, where Nino swept.

"We have tried to take the museum to Valencia but they have not paid attention to us. It is a pity. Oh, if Nino had been French ... Look at the funeral of Johnny Halliday!", He laments.

Conforms to The Trust Project criteria

Know more