Ali Primera

Ali Primera is a composer-songwriter and singer Venezuelan born with Coro (State de Falcon), Venezuela, the October 31st 1942, and died in Caracas in a road accident, the February 16th 1985.

Biography

Alí Rafael Primera Rosell had as parents Antonio Primera and Carmen Adela Rossell. His/her father was killed when it was three years old, during a shooting caused by an escape bid from prisoners of the prison of Coro.

Following death of his/her father, and although very young person, Alí accompanied his mother and his two brothers in various cities by the peninsula of Paraguaná to the town of Caja de Agua, where it finished his primary studies, then Las Piedras and finally, the district of Vela, close to Punto Fijo. Carrying out a miserable life, Alí exerted many trades, of shoeshiner of shoes with boxer, while continuing his studies.

In 1960 he moves with his family in Caracas where he is registered with the " Liceo Caracas". In 1964, after having obtained its baccalaureat, it integrates the Central University of Venezuela, where it studies chemistry. It starts simultaneously a career of composer-songwriter, initially like pastime, then full-time. Its first two songs, " Humanidad" and " No basta rezar" (the latter was presented to the Festival of Canción de Protesta organized by the University of the Andes in 1967) brought a certain notoriety quickly to him.

El Cantor del Pueblo

Between 1969 and 1973 it remains in Europe thanks to a purse which proposes to him in 1968 the Communist party Venezuelan in order to continue his studies in Romania. In Europe, to be able to live, it had to make " the plonge" in restaurants and occurred sometimes in public. In a German studio, it records its first disc, which carries the title " Gente semi tierra". The compositions of Ali Primera reflect the suffering and the misery of the people, and the consequences of the social inequalities, as well as a very clear socialist political standpoint, even communist. For this reason one quickly knows it like " El Cantor del Pueblo" (" The Singer of Peuple").

However, Ali Primera was also victim of censure on behalf of the mediae and the government Venezuelan, because of his engagement and of the topics deeply social present in his songs. He thus decided to create his own production company, named Cigarron, in order to be able to diffuse his compositions. The commercial distribution of its discs was ensured by the Promus company.

After having militated within Vénézuélienne Communist youth, and of the Communist party Venezuelan, Ali Primera participle with the creation of a new political party named FARMHOUSE (" Movimiento Al Socialismo" , i.e. " Movement towards Socialisme") while contributing to the electoral campaign (for the Presidency of Venezuela) of Jose Vicente Rangel in 1973 (this last would become many years later the vice-president of Venezuela, at the sides of president Hugo Chavez, between 2002 and 2007). Ali Primera was already at that time one of the most recognized song writers and performers of Venezuela.

From 1973 with its death, it recorded 13 discs and with taken part in many festivals in all the Latin America. Among his the most known songs, one finds Paraguaná, Sangueo Para el Regreso, Cancion in Dolor Mayor, Sombrero Azul, Ordering Amigo (in homage to Che Guevara) or Techos of cartón. The latter was taken again by many other artists of Latin America, like Soledad Bravo, Guanaguá, and the Mexican singer Marco Antonio Solís.

Ali Primera played in factories, colleges, trade unions, and attended Aula Magna of the Central University of Venezuela.

He composed of many very committed songs, appealing with the combat for the respect of the rights of poorest. Although its compositions were classified in the register of the " Cancion Protesta" vénézuelienne, Ali Primera always presented them like the " Cancion Necesaria" , the " Nécessaire" song;. As he said it itself: " I do not sing because misery exists, but because the possibility of the éradiquer exists aussi."

In Barquisimeto it makes to the connsaissance his future woman (Ground Musset), who had just gained the contest of " Voz Liceista" (" The Lycéenne" Voice;) and presented itself to the festival " los Venezolanos primero" in 1977. In addition to the two girls whom it had had at the time of its voyage in Sweden (María Fernanda María Angela, which lives today in Canadá), it had five wire there: Sandino, Jorge, Servando, Florentino and Juan Simón. Two of them (Servando and Florentino) launched out later in a career of interpreters, although in a register very different from that of their father, that of the merengue and salsa, under the name of " Servando there Florentino" or " Los Hermanos Primera".

Political pressures and heritage

Ali Primera was going to devote itself to the fight for the people, to sing for the popular masses, and with an impressive solidarity with that which it called " Patria Buena".

He had to face many pressures, like several attacks with his person (of which the jet of a teargas grenade in its apartment).

He died on February 16th, 1985, in a road accident which occurred on Autopista Valle-Stage coach of Caracas, whereas he returned of a scéance of recording of his next disc. Some see in this accident an ultimate attempt to make it conceal.

Before its death, Alí Primera had started at the end of 1984 the realization of a new disc where it wished to combine its usual compositions with new rates/rhythms, of which Gaita Zuliana (original musical rate/rhythm specific to the state of Zulia in Venezuela). The musical tracks had been recorded, and Ali Primera had recorded the voices of four of the songs. A few weeks after the accident, Jose Montecano, brother of Ali Primera, and also composer-songwriter interpreter undertook to finish this project with his nephews. The album was named " Por If No Lo Sabía" and was the only album of Ali Primera to be the subject of televisual publicity, television vénézuélienne having always prohibited the artist of antenna of alive sound.

The following year, Cigarron decided to leave the album " Ali, in vivo" (" Ali, in concert"), recorded in the Auditorium Magdalena Seijas of the Teaching Academic institute of Barquisimeto. During this concert, organized at the time of the birthday of a radiophonic program of " cancion protesta" , Ali Primera had interpreted the national anthem Venezuelan.

The work of Ali Primera

The songs of Ali Primera often comprise a rather long text, but often very inspired and full with the human values and social which it defended. Thus, the song " Techos de Carton" (" Roofs of Carton") is an evocation of the fate of those which are condemned to live in Bidonville S, sheltered by paperboards, and whose condition and concerns contrast with those of easiest:

" That sad oye the lluvia

in mow put cartón

that lejos passed the esperanza

in los techos of cartón"

Ali Primera evokes also the heritage left by the Simon Bolivar Liberator, in the song " Sangueo para el regreso" , where he imagines the fury and the despair which would be those of the Liberator if he returned today and discovered the living conditions of the poor of Latin America, and the lapse of memory of the ideals of justice for which he had fought:

" Dicen that Bolívar trae

furia there coraje por dentro

Al worm that our han quitado

lo that él dejó siendo nuestro

Dicen what comes caliente

por nuestro comportamiento

Al dejar caer known espada

there también known pensamiento"

If, today, certain songs of Ali Primera seem to reflect a certain naivety, and an idyllic and somewhat exceeded vision Communism (" Cuba be Paraiso" for example), other compositions are on the other hand always of topicality (like " Ahora that El Petroleo are Nuestro"), whereas Venezuela, by the action of its president Chavez, seeks to take again the control of its oil-bearing resources:

" Nosotros lo trabajamos

nosotros lo refinamos

señores has esa comedia

the gracia yo No the veo

that nosotros trabajemos

there ellos idiot el mercadeo"

Lastly, Ali Primera can be also sometimes made tend, as in the song " Amor in Very Tiempos" , which is superb and moving declaration of love.

Discography

External bonds

Songs of Ali Primera (in Spanish)

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