On April 6, fifty years ago, the 19th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in the English city of Brighton. The Spanish government, through Spanish Television, had decided that its representative would be Peret, an artist with consolidated popularity who could very well represent what the regime considered the Hispanic cultural essences. Sing and be happy, a title with clear optimistic connotations, came in ninth place, towards the middle of the classification. And it cannot even be said that it contributed excessively to increasing the fame of Peret and rumba in Europe, since the Catalan musician was already well known on the continent at that time, especially since his Borriquito (“Little donkey like you, tururú, you don’t even know the u, tururú, I know more than you”) would have reached number one on the charts in places like the Netherlands or Germany. In reality, Peret had not even wanted to participate in that contest. He didn’t need it.
This Eurovision story and many others about the Mataró musician are told, now that ten years have passed since the artist’s death (on August 27), in a new biography with the title The Great Peret, written by the musician as well – and also a rumbero with the group Los Manolos – Rogeli Herrero. However, we could say that Herrero’s book is both a biography and, at the same time, a tribute. Because at no time does the author hide his admiration for Peret, whom he considers a rumba maestro. And, as both musicians and rumberos, there is also a proximity between them due to shared projects.
Thus, in El gran Peret there is a compendium of the most significant moments in the life and artistic career of the musician and, in addition to collecting what had already been made known in various sources (biographies, documentaries…), it provides the personal testimony of the author and that of some people very close to Peret to whom, precisely because of their proximity, Herrero has had access.
There is therefore a lot of information and anecdotes in this book – some known, others not – from the various stages in Peret’s life. From his childhood in a gypsy family that lived in barracks in Mataró, without water or electricity, or shortly after when they moved to Barcelona where he grew up in a community in which, beyond the economic hardships, music – and party – are one of its pillars. For this reason, it is not strange that Peret – Pere Pubill Calaf on record – debuted as a musician at only twelve years old with his cousin Josefina – Tía Pepi – in a duo that performed as the Montenegro Brothers at the Tívoli theater in Barcelona, ??in a gala chaired by the then Argentine first lady, Eva Perón.
Hermanos Montenegro would be nothing more than the first step on a long ladder that would lead Peret to success as an artist, although it was not always easy and he was often forced to carry out other jobs, in the family tradition, such as that of a street vendor. Rogeli Herrero’s book gives an account of this entire process, stopping at his various recording stages – and his cinematographic forays, common among successful artists of the time – without avoiding those other moments that were most talked about, such as the stage in which who left music to dedicate himself to the evangelical church as a pastor. We thus see how Peret is a prominent part of Spanish music in the so-called “years of developmentalism” and international tourism and how, many years later, he is the main star in an event of global significance such as the closing gala of the Olympic Games. from Barcelona. A passage of decades in which rumba was not always in the foreground but, as Herrero explains, sometimes he had to enter the –musical– hospital to end up, of course, always resurrecting.
However, perhaps the most outstanding aspect of the book is the one referring to the most intrinsically musical issues, where the author’s condition as a musician is always glimpsed. Whether in the analysis of the songs and the evolution of Catalan rumba over the years, or at the moment of pointing out what he considers to be Peret’s most significant repertoire (that of the late sixties, with his works for the Vergara record company, which include songs like El mig amic or Pensant en tu).
And, of course, he does not avoid another issue that has caused so much talk – and continues to do so – such as the origins and fatherhood of the Catalan rumba and that way of playing the guitar called the fan. He details Herrero how the essential ingredients of the Catalan rumba are flamenco, the gypsy party, Antillean music and the rock of Elvis Presley. And the person who best synthesizes and projects these elements is none other than Peret, which does not mean that other chefs have not cooked the same dish and deserve recognition. Thus, Herrero dares to establish his holy trinity of Catalan rumba: Antonio González el Pescadilla, Peret and Gato Pérez, something similar to what Elvis, Chuck Berry and Bob Dylan represent for rock.
By way of conclusion, the book (also illustrated with numerous photographs) includes two ideas that define the musician very well: Peret was a “son of necessity, who began as a rogue to end up as a wise man” and he was also “a character key in the evolution of Spanish pop (…) and cornerstone of the only popular genre born in Europe during the 20th century: Catalan Rumba.”
