The history of the version of Colombia, beloved country by Juan Carlos Coronel and how Disney chose it for the soundtrack of Charm, his animated film about Colombia, began in 1993.
At the time, Coronel did the two Codiscos studies. “In one he recorded a salsa album and in the other, the album in honor of maestro Lucho Bermúdez, the author of the song. I ran between the two studios to finish the albums on time, ”he recalls.
But to have a free way to do Lucho Bermúdez’s is hot One teacher, one voiceIt was not easy at all. “Oh, Juan Carlos, you always have your stuff,” said Fernando López, Codiscos manager, Monday. ‘I’m not blaming you, my brother. Look, we do it with Carlos Piña in the arrangements. We’ve already chosen the songs, ”replied Coronel.
The idea had come to his mind last Friday during a concert by the Lucho Bermúdez Orchestra at the Palacio de Exposiciones in the capital of Antioquia. “I’m going to the teacher,” he said to himself. We haven’t talked for years. “
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And the music worked its magic.
The songs started to playKalamarí, Caprichito, among other). They were all great, but the teacher was missing, who was very old and sick. “But look when he got on stage, aided by two people, he seemed to be gaining super powers by holding his clarinet in his hands.. That concert didn’t have many people, like 300 people, and upon hearing the greatness of their music, it occurred to me to make the album ”.
All those memories took up space at Coronel last Thursday, when his social networks exploded with thousands of messages at the start of the night.
“I was shocked and wondered, ‘What have I done?’, ‘What happened?’. Suddenly, I began to see that my version of Colombia, the best country, had been chosen for the movie.
His children, who were far more technologically knowledgeable than he, helped him take a good look to make sure the news “tagueada” was from Disney. “It is, of course, someone who has so much time in this, until he loses the ability to wonder. And doubt”.
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With everything clear, he said, “Sit down, assimilate it, because this has a lot of meaning. This is important”.
And it was not small: Disney had a movie inspired by the Colombian coffee region, with images reminiscent of the words of Gabriel García Márquez, with the story of a family with powers, except for the main character: a girl named Mariana.
In Codiscos they found out two days earlier, but they couldn’t say anything to Coronel. So said Andrés Ovalle, president of the record company, who added that he could not speak because there was a confidentiality pact with the American multinational and that confidentiality included all negotiations.
Talks began in Miami with Dennis Murcia, responsible for International Business Development for the Medellín-based phono company.
“He got a call and from there they started talking about different songs. Colombia, beloved country It caught their attention because it is very representative of us, it is positive about our identity ”, adds Ovalle.
Juan Carlos Coronel has also paid tribute to interpreters such as José José, with whom he was friends.
It was also a quick thing, as the Disney executives had been working with different sound proposals for a long time. pre-selected ”.
Coronel, for his part, started singing the beginning of the song over the phone, before answering this interview, “Colombiaaaaa, my country,” as this version begins, which has a long space of cumbia before the lyrics appear.
The disk One teacher, one voice came out first than his salsa album. “It was strange because they got confused at the same time, and then something unprecedented happened at the Barranquilla Carnival, where it made an impression, and a really nice wave of restoration of our sounds started to take place, because Moisés Angulo also played an important did work. Today I think that everything sown back then is bearing fruit”.
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Coronel’s relationship with maestro Lucho Bermúdez began when Juan Carlos was a child and took his first steps in music with a concert on a yacht in Cartagena.
Colonel was 9 or 10 years old. Maestro Lucho Bermúdez was surprised by his voice and invited him to Bogotá, at his home, to join his orchestra in Jimmy’s Show, which was one of the most watched music programs on television.
“From that stay I remember that Patricia, his daughter, was little and that the teacher also took me to a concert in a club in Bogotá. On the show Jimmy Salcedo sat me at his piano and I sang Cartagena nights. Maestro Lucho has been a great support to me and today when I see what is happening I feel that life is what you are weaving, the knots you are tying. And tomorrow or later those buttons will help you strengthen things, in my case in art, which has been my end”.
Ovalle, in Medellín, the record company headquarters, compares what happened to the song Remember me, from the movie Coco, also from Disney, and winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, “but without compromising the beauty of Remember me, I think ours trumps it, because it talks about the country from the start ”.
For Coronel, it is a way for the country to reach the rest of the world, “not just for Colombians who live far away and will see the movie, but for many more people who will see us differently.”
Coronel will of course have an added value over the others: the superpowers of the Colombian family of Charm, the central theme of the film, they will remind you of the superpower of maestro Lucho Bermúdez with his clarinet, when he saw and heard it on a Friday night in Medellín and it inspired him to make an album for which he made no cost , a work he did with love and gratitude.
Olga Lucía Martínez Ante
CULTURE
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