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22.Oct.2010

JOSÉ CARBAJAL A.K.A "EL SABALERO" PASSED AWAY

This morning José Carbajal, a.k.a “el Sabalero” died. His lifeless body was found by a neighbour in his house in Villa Argentina. He was 66 years old.  

Singer and songwriter José Carbajal "El Sabalero", 66 years old, was found dead in his house in Villa Argentina this morning. His death was presumably due to a heart attack but it hasn’t been confirmed yet.

José Carbajal "El Sabalero", was born in Juan Lacaze, in Colonia on 8th December 1943. A few months ago, before an interview with Montevideo Portal, he gave us an autobiography.

Carbajal’s autobiography

I was born in December of 1943 in Puerto Sauce in Colonia. When I was a kid in my town, there were two factories. A textile one with 1800 workers, and a paper factory with more or less 600 workers. It was the war years and a lot of people from the countryside and the neighbouring towns arrived looking for work just like my parents had in the 40s and they started to settle in the surroundings of the tows, making new neighbourhoods. That’s how the town grew and eventually extended along the coast.

The high smoking chimneys rose above the brown waters of Río de la Plata above the endless sand dunes where fishermen had their huts, boats and fish nets. Past the meadows and a little beyond, in the green neighbourhoods full of trees, the wind dried overalls and work coats.

We grew up free, we grew up with fishing on Saturdays, with chimneys in front of our eyes.

I did my seven years of primary school in the Don Bosco industrial school, a year in a state high-school and then I abandoned the little room with 30 chairs and a world globe for 400 looms and another language and others, who being half teachers and half colleagues taught me for six years the hardest of all the subjects: fraternity. Meanwhile, with five friends and the support of some teachers, we founded the free night school, so we could take exams to make our passing to the next grade official.

Since I was a child I was very passionate about reading, I started to write when I was young and with a guitar that I shared with various friends I started playing and became a sort of singer, songwriter, poet. In 1967 I got to Montevideo, and I worked in the folk club where I sang my songs. I made a record with four songs that went by unnoticed until in 1969 I recorded my first LP in with "Pantalón cortito", "La Villa Pancha"  and “sentados al cordón de la vereda", which people had actually renamed since they were actually called “Chiquillada", "La Sencillita" and "A mi gente".

After that record my life changed because the songs impacted in Uruguay and some went around Latin America and became quite popular. So my moment to chose came and I chose. Music and writing seemed to convince me more than my mother’s warnings against the insecurities of the not very prestigious adventure that I was starting, i.e. my life as singer and guitar player, so I chose that.

I went to Buenos Aires and from there to Spain, where I stayed from a year and a half until Franco’s regime threw me out to France. Five years later, Holland filled all my empty spaces and then we stayed in Mexico until 1984. I came back on 3rd Novemeber of that year and we stayed from 8 more years while our children Antolin and Catalina were born.

14 years ago we went back to Holland - where I write songs and stories and cook clean and take care of my house and my children- and Uruguay  (and occasionally Argentina, USA and some European countries) where I continue to work on my music with a permanent group that we formed in 1986.