Hernán Gamboa

Hernán José Gamboa Alexis (San Tomé, Anzoátegui State, Venezuela; June 18, 1946-Buenos Aires, Argentina; January 10, 2016) was a an Venezuelan classical folk cuatro player. He is an venezuelan folk music singer, one of the founders of the group Serenata Guayanesa and exponent of the execution of the Venezuelan cuatro.

Hernán José Gamboa Alexis was the first of the seven children of the marriage of the singer, musician and composer Carmito Gamboa Almeida and Carmen Alexis de Gamboa.2 Due to his early musical inclinations in childhood he began his music studies with his father, Carmito Gamboa, who taught him to play the Venezuelan cuatro, the guitar and other string instruments specializing in the first one at the beginning of his professional career. Thus he created a special technique of execution called rascapunteo, which consists of the combination of a technique of four, called charrasqueo and a guitar technique, called punteo.3

In 1970 he founded, together with his friends and colleagues Mauricio Castro Rodríguez and the brothers Iván and César Pérez Rossi, the musical group "Serenata Guayanesa", in which he was arranger, singer and first cuatrista.4 In 1971, with his classmates of the group that still lacked name accompanies his father, Carmito Gamboa in the album "Serenata Guayanesa" edited by the Governor of the State of Bolívar for the Orinoco Fair that year. After a presentation at the then private television channel Cadena Venezolana de Televisión, the group assumed the name by which it is known and signed its first record contract with the Venezuelan record company El Palacio de la Música.

In 1977, without renouncing the group, he signed a contract with the Venezuelan record company, now disappeared, PROMUS to make his first solo album, entitled "El Cuatro de Venezuela", presented in August of that year and assuming the title of the disco as an artistic pseudonym. During that time, in the breaks of the group's activities, he taught biology and chemistry to high school students5 However, in 1983, after the recording of the album "Cantemos con los niños", there were differences between Gamboa and his students. comrades, 6 what made him renounce and dedicate himself to his career as a soloist, sometimes as a singer and sometimes as a musician.