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Amparo Sandino
I don’t know whether I can speak for everybody but these nonsensical days that we live in, where our feet can’t keep up with everyday life, where our memories are dragged away by an avalanche of information, where our feelings are corrupted by supply and demand – sometimes I’d like to get off the bus for a while and seriously contemplate how life goes by unchanged without me. Sometimes the only thing I feel like doing is listening to a fairy tale again.
One such tale tells of a little Colombian girl named Amparo Sandino who, when she was only eight years old, took hold of a guitar and began playing with ease. Maybe her mother’s passion for the piano was a great influence. Whatever the reason, the little girl grew and grew as did the music inside her until she decided, thinking of her future, to study to be a music teacher so she could share her love of music.
Even so, this young girl could not be complete without airing all the melodies that sprung and spiraled in her fingers and through her lips. For this reason she recorded jingles for the radio. She also did back-up vocals and accompanied the group COMPAŃIA ILIMITADA on their tour. One day in 1992 she auditioned and successfully entered LA PROVIDENCIA – the group that accompanies Carlos Vives, the artist who was responsible for the reincarnation of vallenato all over the world.
Shortly afterwards another chapter opened in the tale. It was in August 1994 in a concert with Vives in Radio City Music Hall of New York. A man named Mark Kamins approached her after the concert complimenting her in open admiration. Soon after she found out that this man who had flattered her so was an executive from Elecktra and as if this wasn’t enough one of the people who had discovered Madonna.
The door to success was opening wider. From this new relationship her career as a solo artist soared taking form in the album: "Punto de Partida". A beginning as the title suggests – infested by wondrous moments that combine pop, jazz, blues, salsa, vallenato, bolero – everything, absolutely everything. The battle to put together everything she learned as a child paid off in a glorious victory. She didn’t even need to push her collaborators such as The Gypsy Kings or the singer, Javier Ojeda (Danza Invisible) to show clearly that what she had to offer was an explosive cocktail. Was anybody not enraptured by the irresistible flavor of "Mar de amores"?
After a couple of years touring and taking her songs to all corners of the world, Amparo Sandino, already a femme fatale, the type of woman who unfortunately has to fight to show that beneath her beauty lies intelligence and burning passion. This time with "El Ańo del Gato" a new compendium of pure, hard sensations – naked and blinding in their brilliance.
This time she does it with Manuel Tejada, recognized for his work with Juan Luis Guerra – and also Pavel de Jesus (Proyecto 1), producers of these eleven songs recorded in Santo Domingo and mixed in New York. Eleven shots to the heart, eleven gushing words and sounds, heavy in their significance, eleven photos for a new and personal photo album. The cat and her, a guitar and an accordion. The pleasure of having her back again. But as always, without prejudice when the time comes to form an opinion of her repertoire. Only she could have chosen a classic from Trio Matamoros and season it with programming and flamenco arrangements successfully, or play with folk in "Mirame" where Joni Mitchell of Melissa Etheridge, lend a hand in the Colombian tradition, or manage to capture those delicate Astrud Gilberto style tunes that tint "Ven y besame" or to sum up the afro-latin heritage in a few minutes as in "Así es mi gente" or to mix rap with the accordian in a "Carpe Diem" ode as in "Gózate la Vida" – the first single to be taken from the album or – well – in the end there is so much to tell and so little space….
Every fairy tale has an ending but this particular story will have to wait. I don’t want it to end because I’m sure that Amparo Sandino is here to stay at least while she offers such a unique opus as this proves to be and I have a notion that it will be prolific enough to last a lifetime.
The fairy tale continues…..
With a happy ending – of course!
© David F. Abel
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