Gabino Palomares

Gabino Palomares
Gabino Palomares. Circa 1998. Concert in Mexico City.
Background information
Born	(1950-05-26) May 26, 1950 (age 67) Comonfort, Guanajuato, Mexico
Genres	Nueva canción, canto nuevo, protest song
Instruments	Voice, guitar
Associated acts	Silvio Rodriguez, Mercedes Sosa, Pete Seeger, Daniel Viglietti, Amparo Ochoa, Óscar Chávez, Los Folkloristas

Gabino Palomares Gómez (born May 26, 1950. Comonfort, Guanajuato, México) is a Mexican singer-songwriter and a social and political activist. He is one of the main exponents of the Nueva Canción movement in Latin America, and one of the founders of the Canto Nuevo movement in Mexico, alongside Amparo Ochoa, Óscar Chávez, and the group Los Folkloristas. He is the author of "La maldición de Malinche" (Malinche’s Curse, 1978), one of the most prominent songs of the movement, and of more than a hundred songs covering social, political, and love themes.

Gabino Palomares Gómez was born in Comonfort, Guanajuato and studied chemistry at the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí. His first show, "Poems and Songs", premiered at the University's Song Festivals of 1972 with great success. In 1975, he moved to Mexico City where he started singing in bars, "peñas", universities, unprivileged neighborhoods, public squares, unions' headquarters, and small theaters. Two venues were noteworthy: “El meson de la guitarra” and “La peña Tecuicanime.” Here, he met Amparo Ochoa and Salvador "Chava" Flores, with whom he began a long-life friendship.Amparo Ochoa performed and recorded several of his songs, among them "La Maldición de Malinche" (Malinche's Curse, 1978) and "Quién tiene la voz?" (Who owns the voice?, 1984). In the same way, throughout his career Gabino Palomares performed and recorded many of Salvador "Chava" Flores' songs. Some of them are part of the album Gabino Palomares interpreta a Chava Flores (Gabio Palomares Sings the Songs of Chava Flores, 2010).

At the end of the 1970s, Gabino Palomares started to be recognized as one of the main exponents of both Mexican Canto Nuevo and the Latin American New Song. In 1978, he recorded his first album La Maldición de Malinche (Malinche's Curse) that includes some of his most emblematic songs, among them: "A la patria" (To the Homeland, 1978), "La Maldición de Malinche" (Malinche's Curse, 1978), "La letanía de los poderosos" (The Powerful's Litany, 1978). According to musicologist Jan Fairley, "La maldición de Malinche" is "surely one of the most important songs of the Americas". Also in 1978, Gabino Palomares contributed as composer, singer, and actor in Felipe Santander’s celebrated piece “El extensionista" (The extensionist, 1978). From this experience appeared, in 1985, his album El extensionista (The Extensionist, 1985). In 1980, Gabino Palomares recorded his second studio album Fabricando la luz (Manufacturing the Light, 1980).