Roberto Parra Sandoval

Roberto Parra Sandoval (*Santiago, Chile, June 29th, 1921 - † Santiago, Chile, April 21st, 1995), Also known as el tío Roberto ("the uncle Roberto") was a Chilean singer-songwriter, guitar player and folklorist, member of the Parra family, whose members are often famous artists.

Biography

Early times

Son of "Clarisa Sandoval Navarrete" and "Nicanor Parra Parra", "uncle Roberto" was the fifth son of the "Parra Sandoval" family, after Nicanor, Hilda, Violeta and Eduardo, and born before of Caupolicán, Elba, Lautaro and Óscar. His first steps in music were precipitated by the early death of his father. He start to street singing among to his siblings Violeta, Eduardo and Hilda on small towns and villages around Chillán and Parral.

On 1935, having fourteen years old, Roberto starts to work as a guitar player on several circuses, and cabarets, first on southern Chile. Until the late fifties, he worked travelling north and south, making himself very popular, along with his brother Eduardo, with whom he formed the Dúo de los Hermanos Parra ("Parra Brothers Duet") on 1938. He has to sporadically work on several other jobs; he work on Valparaiso's dry-dock, and as paperboy, shoeshiner, welder, mechanic helper, carpenter, and owner of a furniture shop, among others.

San Antonio's cabarets

On September of 1957, he arrives for the first time to Chilean sailing port of "San Antonio", where he's hired to sing on the orchestra of the cabaret "Luces del Puerto". On the boite "Río de Janeiro", he meets "La Negra Ester", a prostitute and performer of the boite. They start a sentimental relationship, that will be inmortalized on his book Las décimas de la Negra Ester, a poetry book written on décimas.

External links

* http://www.mav.cl/negra_ester/index.htm Las décimas de la Negra Ester (Spanish)