THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,395) Nuevos Horizontes — “Tio Vivo”/”Live Uncle”
From Spain’s Mamas and the Papas (but funkier), “one of the best Spanish vocal groups of all time” (Angelo C Turetromusic (courtesy of Google Translate), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxatHUP2Zew) comes the B-side of their second single, “a fantastical story that seems to talk about a lysergic trip”. (liner notes to the CD comp Fading Yellow Vol. 14: Spanish Popsike and Other Delights 1967-1973)
The liner notes to volume 14 of the wonderful Fading Yellow series tells us that “This quartet from Madrid had a classic music education and an endless curiosity about everything around them and beyond. Those two factors helped them on their own odyssey, creating a local ingenious popsike style.”
Angelo C Turetromusic tells us more (courtesy of Google Translate):
In the mid-60s, four music students with a solid classical training formed a pop group called Los Unísonos. They recorded two singles and an EP for the Philips label without finding the slightest impact, despite appearing on some television programs at the time. When they had practically thrown in the towel, Columbia became interested in relaunching their career. There is some change in the formation and they are called New Horizons. This renewed quartet is made up of Ana María (voice, piano and organ), Tommy (voice and guitar), Alfonso (voice and drums) and Juan (voice and bass). Their new record company puts them in contact with two girls who study Fine Arts and have composed a couple of songs for films. Their names are Elena Santonja and Gloria van Aersen, a year later they will begin to be known as Vainica Doble. With two songs by this couple of composers they released their first single. They made it into the top 10, appeared on television and produced what yours truly has always considered the highest example of national psychedelia: “El afinador de zithers” . . . . The following year, in 1970, after this success, again with the same authors they put into circulation “My favorite fly”, another remarkable song that did not perform poorly at all in the market [with “Tio Vivo” as the B-side]. Nuevos Horizontes would still put into circulation four more singles without any commercial significance, but with undoubted quality . . . . The strength of Nuevos Horizontes was their voices. They were compared, not without reason, to The Mamas and the Papas or The Beach Boys. Their classical studies allowed them to sing in three and four voices, undertake fugal forms and other vocal beauty available to very few. The contrast between Tommy’s female voice and Tommy’s male voice, almost always singing the verses in several voices, defines the style of this group. In 1973 they published their last single and Ana María, their main reference, left the group. The following year, the three remaining musicians will join José Martín and Manuel Martín, who had just closed the group Solera.
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