Desafiando al olvido

Shortly before midnight on March 28, 1977, a friend found composer Waldo de los Ríos dying in the guest bedroom of his Madrid home. For several months, De los Ríos had been on a bad streak: he had lost a lot of weight, drank, stayed up late, constantly took tranquilizers and felt threatened by strange phone calls that he did not give many details. In addition, he lived obsessed with the idea of ??losing the fortune he had amassed since, eight years earlier, he composed the Hymn to Joy, a record that achieved success in the United States, Germany or Canada. His peculiar way of orchestrating had also served to launch artists such as Raphael, Karina or Mari Trini to stardom. Many of the successes of the sixties and seventies had passed through his hands: from Cállate niña, to La Yenka through the tune of Curro Jiménez. Although he was a popular character in Spain, Argentina or France, Waldo de los Ríos felt lonely and sad in that harsh winter of 1977, in which events such as the Atocha murders, the Los Rodeos air catastrophe or the ETA attacks startled to Spanish society. Next to the bed in which he was found badly injured, the police found a shotgun, several photos, two cassettes that reproduced the voices of a man and his mother, and a video camera. Despite the doubts of some friends and family, the police investigation quickly concluded that the musician had committed suicide. Shortly after, the body was embalmed and transferred in a sealed coffin to Buenos Aires, where the Argentine dictatorship denied him any public recognition.