Manuel O. Campoamor (November 7, 1877 – April 29, 1941) was a Uruguayan musician who composed some of the earliest published

tangos Tangos may refer to: * "Tangos" (song), a song popularized in Spain * Tangos (district), a district or barangay in Navotas, Philippines * ''Tangos'' (album), a 1973 album by Buenos Aires 8 * ''Tangos'' (Rubén Blades album), a 2014 album by Ru ...

. When he was young, he moved with his family from Montevideo to the

San Telmo San Telmo ("Saint Pedro González Telmo") is the oldest ''barrio'' (neighborhood) of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is a well-preserved area of the Argentine metropolis and is characterized by its colonial buildings. Cafes, tango parlors and antique ...

district of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and showed an early aptitude for playing the piano. He can be heard playing the piano in early tango recordings, and his own tango compositions are still performed today.

Tango compositions

Campoamor is credited with composing some of the first published tangos including "Sargento Cabral" (1899), "En el séptimo cielo" (1900), "La cara de la luna" (1901), "La metralla" (1902), "Muy de la garganta" (1903), and "Mi capitán" (1905). His first tango, written to honor the heroic Argentinean soldier

Juan Bautista Cabral Juan Bautista Cabral (24 June 1789 – 3 February 1813) was an Argentine soldier, of Zambo origin, of the Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers who died in the Battle of San Lorenzo, while he was aiding then Colonel Don José de San Martín, whose hor ...

, was dedicated to the musician Leopoldo Corretjer. Campoamor's 1901 tango, "La cara de la luna" (in English "The Face of the Moon"), originally bore a different name. The cover on the original sheet music displays the title as "La C.....ara de la L...una" with the dots indicating the missing letters from the original title, which was considered too vulgar to put into print. The original title was "La concha de la lora" with "concha" and "lora" being the

lunfardo Lunfardo (; from the Italian ''lombardo'' or inhabitant of Lombardy in the local dialect) is an argot originated and developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the lower classes in Buenos Aires and from there spread to other urban are ...

words for "vagina" and "prostitute" respectively. It is commonly reported that tango originated in the slums and bordellos of Buenos Aires. The original title of this early tango is a testament to that legacy.

Life in Buenos Aires

Campoamor lived in the

neighborhood of Buenos Aires. He was a self-taught pianist from an early age but to earn a living got a job as a police telegrapher at the age of 16. Over the next 11 years, he worked in various jobs in the telegraphy industry before taking a position at Gath & Chaves, a large Buenos Aires store, where he was employed for 25 years. He did not publish any new tangos after 1905, but continued to perform on the piano and recorded with other notable musicians including

Gabino Ezeiza Gabino Ezeiza, nicknamed ''Negro''El negro Gabino Ez ...

Higinio Cazón Higinio D. Cazón (1866–1914) was an Argentine musician, songwriter and ''payador''. His he toured throughout the country, but the preferred center of his performances was in Buenos Aires and the people of this province. He published a booklet c ...

and Linda Thelma.

Recordings

Campoamor's tangos were written when sound recording was transitioning from

cylinders A cylinder (from ) has traditionally been a three-dimensional solid, one of the most basic of curvilinear geometric shapes. In elementary geometry, it is considered a prism with a circle as its base. A cylinder may also be defined as an infini ...

phonograph records A phonograph record (also known as a gramophone record, especially in British English), or simply a record, is an analog signal, analog sound Recording medium, storage medium in the form of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove ...

; his tangos were first recorded on cylinders. Early phonograph record recordings of his tangos were distributed on labels from "Disco Casa Farraris", "Gath & Chaves", and others. Many of these have been remastered and are available today on CD. Campoamor also provided piano accompaniment for tango recordings as early as 1905 (Disco ZONOFONO No 13786). During the Golden Age of Tango Campoamor's compositions were popular with the

Francisco Canaro Francisco Canaro (November 26, 1888 – December 14, 1964) was a Uruguayan violinist and tango orchestra leader. Canaro was born in San José de Mayo, Uruguay, in 1888. His parents were Italian immigrants, and later, when he was less than 10 ye ...

orchestra, and CD's of these recordings are available today.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Campoamor, Manuel 1877 births 1941 deaths Uruguayan tango musicians Uruguayan emigrants to Argentina Uruguayan musicians