Sunday, September 29, 2013

Juan Carlos Duque, actualizado

A few years ago, I wrote about Juan Carlos Duque's song "Promesas" and the memories it held for me of Chile and my church mission there in 1979-80.  A lady named Patty Páez, whom I'd known in La Cisterna (a comuna of Santiago) when she was a young girl, came across my original blog post and recently, out of the blue, sent me a copy of Duque's 2006 CD Queda tanto por andar (see attached image).  I'm really impressed with the CD -- the music is great and Duque, after all, was ~58 years old when the CD was released (and is now ~65 years old); I mean, most singers at that age, if they're still recording, tend to do middle-of-the-road standards, not vibrant, modern, meaningful pop tunes.  Patty implied that Duque's importance to the music scene in Chile is indicative of an overall lack of talent there; I can't speak to that question, but Duque's abilities as a songwriter, arranger, musician, and singer are undeniable as far as I'm concerned.  (By the way, the new album even has an updated, guitar-heavy version of "Promesas.")