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Camilo Sesto died last Sunday at age 72, leaving desolate family, friends, thousands of fans and many other less attentive Spaniards who had spent a lifetime confusing "Sesto" with "Sixth."

It is difficult to ask the new generations for an opinion on Camilo, they are too locked up in all those possibilities that have promised the trap and the new urban songbook. As for the thirties with better memory, for many of them Camilo was only that whitish guy from the Viejuna Triad ( Julio Iglesias , Raphael and Camilo Sesto ) who tried to modernize 15 years ago, that way, with the always undervalued hit Mola Mazo .

However, there are many who have kept it in mind since its inception as an icon. And I do not mean his born followers, obviously, or the old school of alcoyanos, I mean the lovers of the most honest heavy music. And it is that as the guitarist and founding member of La Maldita and Darksoul , Marcos García Jorge , points out, "if this man had been born in England he would have been a singer of Deep Purple or Led Zeppelin , a legend of heavy metal ."

Camilo's career practically began with a band that already pointed out ways, Los Botines , which despite bearing the stigma of the name ramplón, like many of the bands of the time, rose, as one of the most popular ensembles of the moment, to revolutionary awakening of the young women of the 60s in Spain. In fact, we were able to see Los Botines lift passions in the movie of the year 66 Hamelin starring Miguel Ríos . Camilo and his band almost remember The Beatles , dressed in those multicolored outfits that he lent to those of Liverpool, in his day, Sergeant Pepper.

In Los boys del PREU , a film from the year 67 in which he shares the bill with José Luis López Vázquez himself , Camilo already emerged as a "hairy" rebel addicted to contemporary rock . Well, everything "rebel" that could be at the time. The metal was curled inside, just waiting for his chance to blow molten down his larynx and impress us all.

There was not much left. However, first, as we can all imagine, Camilo Sesto put aside the musical groups to stand out as a solo lover of ballads, thus appropriating the adolescent heart of our mothers, who as it was not fashionable to throw the underwear filled him with Carnations in their performances. But there was something unique about him that differentiated him from the rest of the Cañís crooners of the Peninsula, from the Latin label overruns, and they were his eagerness to experiment and go further in music. He then turned his gaze to the musical theater.

Yes, Camilo had caught up and had seen Jesuchrist Superstar , the original version, which, before its premiere on Broadway and in the West End was recorded in conceptual album format by the unreachable heavy voice of Ian Gillan , vocalist of Deep Purple or Black Sabbath , like Jesus. Enthused with this rock opera, Camilo began to move threads to create the adaptation of the work in Spanish. It must be said that he did not have it easy, because the heaviest part, apart from his acute impossibilities in the various themes of the work, was the struggle he had to maintain against some ultra-right-wing cutters of the late-Franco Catholic, who called his Jesus Christ Superstar " provocative blasphemy, "in the absence of more insults in their uninspired and repetitive be.

To tell the truth it was a risky time to release such material, the Francoist leader agonized and his followers were not very much for the work, so they delayed again and again its premiere. Then came the diligent censor apparatus and its inquisitive magnifying glass. Then the boycotts by armed groups of the extreme right. And finally the always reassuring bomb threats. But Camilo saved the harassment with Brío Alcoyano and ended up reaching what for many was the greatest peak of his life as an artist and musical vocalist. He was the Messiah.

Well, if the stratospheric falcons adorned by virtuous guitar solos and the games of his larynx in the more metal role of Jesus Christ Superstar , along with the rebellion shown by the singer to stand out as a wayward in a time not very conducive to it have not Valid as proof that Camilo Sesto could be one of the best national heavy metal singers, let's see some tributes that have offered him consolidated bands in this musical genre.

Srtavaganzza

Leo Jiménez de Saratoga

Carpe Diem

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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