Alberto Castillo (singer and actor)
Encyclopedia
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
singer and actor
Actor
An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...
. He was born Alberto Salvador De Luca in the Mataderos
Mataderos
Mataderos is a barrio in Buenos Aires, Argentina, belonging to the 9th comuna .Located in the west end of the city, its name stem from the livestock market and slaughterhouses ....
district of Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina, and the second-largest metropolitan area in South America, after São Paulo. It is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the southeastern coast of the South American continent...
, the son of Italian immigrants Salvatore De Luca and Lucia De Paola (from Teggiano, near Salerno
Salerno
Salerno is a city and comune in Campania and is the capital of the province of the same name. It is located on the Gulf of Salerno on the Tyrrhenian Sea....
). Castillo made his professional debut in the 1930s and began a successful recording career in 1941; his first hit was his cover of the Alfredo Pelala tune “Recuerdo”.
With his keen sense of rhythm and his tendency to go hoarse, Castillo made a name for himself as the main interpreter of the black-oriented genres of candombe
Candombe
Candombe is a musical genre that has its roots in the African Bantu, and is proper of Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil .Uruguayan Candombe is the most practiced and spread internationally and has been recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity...
and milonga
Milonga
Milonga can refer to an Argentine, Uruguayan, and Southern Brazilian form of music which preceded the tango and the dance form which accompanies it, or to the term for places or events where the tango or Milonga are danced...
. One of his most successful recordings was "Cien Barrios Porteños" (The one hundred barrios of Buenos Aires), to the point that presenters would announce him as "the singer of the 100 barrios".
Beginning in 1946, Castillo appeared in a number of Argentine films.
Castillo was also a physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
by training. This fact famously convinced his fiancee's parents to let her marry Alberto, because he was "more than just a tango singer", and was used as a plot device in the Argentine movie Moon of Avellaneda
Moon of Avellaneda
Moon of Avellaneda is an Argentine film, directed by Juan José Campanella, and written by Campanella, Fernando Castets and Juan Pablo Domenech...
(Sp: "Luna de Avellaneda"), where Castillo is summoned to deliver a baby right after finishing his set at a carnival fair (the story is fictitious). Castillo did have a short stint as a sport physician
Sports medicine
Sports medicine is a branch of medicine that deals with physical fitness, treatment and prevention of injuries related to sports and exercise...
. In December 1951, the Vélez Sársfield
Club Atlético Vélez Sársfield
Club Atlético Vélez Sársfield is a sports club based in the Liniers neighborhood of western Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vélez is best known for its football team, that plays in the Argentine Primera División, the top level of the Argentine league system...
soccer team, which he supported, was on a tour of Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
, and several players came down with heatstroke in Pernambuco
Pernambuco
Pernambuco is a state of Brazil, located in the Northeast region of the country. To the north are the states of Paraíba and Ceará, to the west is Piauí, to the south are Alagoas and Bahia, and to the east is the Atlantic Ocean. There are about of beaches, some of the most beautiful in the...
, where Castillo was scheduled to perform. A member of the Vélez delegation contacted Castillo, who tended to the players and stayed with the team for the remainder of the tour, rescheduling some of his shows to fit the team's agenda. http://www.velezsarsfield.net/club/historia/
Among his later releases was a cover of his candombe hit “Siga el Baile”, recorded with Argentine band Los Auténticos Decadentes
Los Auténticos Decadentes
Los Auténticos Decadentes is an Argentine band that mix ska with Latin American rhythms. The band was formed around the year 1986 by Cucho and Nito, who invited Gastón to join them....
.
Castillo is buried in La Chacarita Cemetery
La Chacarita Cemetery
Cementerio de la Chacarita in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is known as the National Cemetery and is the largest in Argentina.-Location:The cemetery is in the barrio or district of Chacarita, in the northern part of Buenos Aires...
in Buenos Aires.