Don Ramón Rivas, a popular musician in province of Chile in the century XX: First part.

Abstract

This paper focuses on the figure of the musician Ramón Rivas Valdebenito (1931-2004), whose musical practice and creation is reviewed from his personal traits and context. His vital career is considered in his double condition of both interpreter and composer in relation to his time, place and social, cultural and technological conditions that determined the practice of his musical work as well as the constitution of his repertoire. His case also constitutes a possible key to understand how a musician who preferred a quieter life far from main cities, was able to integrate into the regional, national and international musical life in the field of popular music by taking advantage of the radio and phonographic development of his time. Furthermore, this paper speaks of how he interacted in the various cities where he lived in his dual status as a musician and citizen. Finally, we consider the process of adapting his boleros into ballads through the records made in the 70s by artists such as Los Angeles Negros, among others, who ended up projecting their songs to other latitudes, turning our subject into one of the least known successful popular musicians of our musical history.