Musicians - Los Tres

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	Musicians - Los Tres

Los Tres was one of the most famous and important bands in the Chilean nineties culture. During years when culture and art began to rise again, considering that almost every freedom concerning expression had been repressed for almost 20 years, it was not a hard task for their music to succeed. They recorded 9 albums during their years together, from 1982 until 2000, starting with Los Tres, in 1991. The band dissolved in 2000 and its members continued their musical careers in personal projects.

History

In 1982, three guys from Concepción, Alvaro Henríquez, Roberto Titae Lindl, and Pancho Molina started a band called Los Dick Stones, whose set list was based on songs by Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, and Gene Vincent. They quickly became very popular in universities, bars, and peñas around the souther city of Concepción. Given their ambition, to achieve success in the Chilean mainstream, they decided to move to the capital city of Santiago and changed their name to Los Tres. In 1988, Ángel Parra joined the band, and even when Los Tres is Spanish for "the three of them", they decided to keep the name.

In 1991, with the alternative Alerce music label, Los Tres recorded their first album, Los Tres. Despite being only a moderately successful album with songs that mixed Rock, Jazz, and Blues, Los Tres nevertheless became an important album in the early nineties. The single Un Amor Violento, and its cheap videoclip were very popular in Chile. The lyrics in some songs of this album (like in La Primera Vez and Hojas Secas) talk strongly about their opposition to the Pinochet coup and the human rights abuses during the military regime.

The second album of the band was called Se Remata el Siglo. In 1993, now signed with the Sony music label, the band achieved a much better quality LP. This album showed more rock elements, in the singles No sabes que desperdicio tengo en el alma and El Aval, but without straying too far from their blues influences in songs like Soñe que estabas justo sobre mi and the BB King's cover The Thrill is Gone.

La Espada & La Pared (1995) was the third album of the band. This album was very popular and the most important of their career. Singles like Dejate Caer and La Espada & La Pared were popular in all of Latin America, thanks to the diffusion on MTV Latino and became a Gold record in 46 days. One of the popular songs in La Espada & La Pared was the remake of Buddy Richard's cover 1960 rock tune Tu Cariño se me Va, where Buddy himself did some back-up vocals.

The popularity achieved by La Espada y La Pared, was an important motivation for the MTV network, who invited Los Tres to perform an Unplugged session in Miami. This was recorded on September 14th, 1995, with the participation of the Chilean musicians and friends of the band Toño Restucci and Cuti Aste. The performance was just a few months after the death of Roberto Parra, an important Chilean folk musician and an inspiration for Alvaro and the band in general. Therefore, the guys decided to dedicate the Unplugged to el tío Roberto memories, and played two cuecas choras, El Arrepentido and La Vida que yo He Pasado, and the popular foxtrot ¿Quién es la que viene allí? composed by him. This was that the first time a Chilean band recorded an Unplugged with MTV.

Unplugged, released in 1996, was such a success in Chile and Latin America. The LP became 4-platinum album in Chile in just three months and the band promoted the LP with unplugged concerts in the Teatro California in Santiago, with guests musicians like Toño Restucci, Pepe Fuentes, Rabanito, Cuti Aste, and Javiera Parra, Angel's sister.

The following years, Los Tres began a short folk-based era. They performed in February 1996 as a guest band in the Viña del Mar international music festival. The show began with Alvaro imitating the characteristic voice of Antonio Vodanovic, the festival's MC. They played a lot of cuecas by Roberto Parra and received the Gaviota de Plata, an award that is reserved only for the festival's music contest, but the crowd insisted strongly until the band received it.

The band began a new traditional event during the 1996 Chilean national independence holiday, on September 18, by founding a Fonda called Yein Fonda in the park Plaza Ñunoa in Santiago, where they performed during several days folk music with friends. The records of this event were released in a LP called La Yein Fonda later that year. During the following years they organized more Fondas, but with time these became more commercial and not as popular as Yein Fonda.

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