More albums from Antonio Vergara
About Antonio Vergara
Hometown
Ecuador
Born
February 27, 1976
Genre
Blues
Antonio Vergara is an award-winning musician, educator, lawyer, and cultural worker from Ecuador. He is well known across Latin America and the Caribbean as a top-shelf blues guitarist and lap steel player. Vergara is also a singer, songwriter, producer, and engineer. He spent 25 years as a first-call sideman and musical director who is well known for his biting, emotionally urgent tone, and use of Chicago and Texas blues traditions. Further, his clean, nonintrusive production and other behind-the-board work has graced more than 50 albums. In 2012, he started his own production company and record label, AVA, using the label name as the title of his award-winning solo debut. In 2014, he delivered one of the first blues concept outings outside North America with the charting Los Bufones También Lloran. Five of its tunes were used by director Alberto Pablo Rivera in his thriller/comedy Sexy Montañita. Vergara followed in 2017 with the adventurous Eclosión, which wove Indian classical instruments into an acoustically rooted blues-rock sound.
Vergara's musical roots are familial; his mother, dramatic soprano Angelina López, is one of Ecuador's most beloved singers. As an adolescent, he began playing guitar and searching for a sound of his own. The quest led him to learn production and engineering techniques, which he perfected while apprenticing at various studios. His work took him to Argentina, where he worked with a wide variety of artists. As an instrumentalist, Vergara taught himself piano, banjo, bass, and mandolin as he branched out from folk songs to embrace blues, rock, pop, country, bluegrass, and other styles. His versatility helped him as a session and live sideman as well as a studio technician.
Vergara pursued his sound studies academically too. He earned a Ph.D. in Sound and Music Production and another in Social Sciences. He holds a postdoctorate in Educational Policies and Culture from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, where he continues to teach. He also earned a law degree, specializing in intellectual property and copyright. In addition to his musical vocation, Vergara has taught in Ecuadorian and Spanish universities.
In 2012, after spending 25 years working in the field, he formed a production company and label called AVA to release his own recordings and to sign and manage younger artists. His debut solo outing -- also titled AVA -- appeared to widespread acclaim late in the year and brought him an award from Ecuador's Arts and Culture Ministry. Vergara won another the following year for his engineering work on behalf of younger artists. In 2014, after taking his own record on the road across South America, he issued the complex concept album Los Bufones También Lloran (The Jesters Also Cry), offering 13 songs centered on themes of love, grief, the primacy of art, and more, with Vergara played everything but drums on the outing. For his efforts, Ecuador's Ministry of Culture and Heritage awarded him its master of music certification.
In 2017, Vergara released Eclosión, a roots-based acoustic recording that juxtaposed North and South American stringed instruments -- including charango, mandolin, banjo, and guitar -- with Indian classical instrumentation, including the tamboura, sitar, and tabla. The set charted in Ecuador and Argentina. Over the next several years, Vergara taught and worked with other artists he signed to AVA, including indie rockers Catalyst and Killkas, blues-rock guitarist Hugo Metralleta, and his mother, Angelina López.
In 2020, Vergara released the double-length IV. The set included 15 blues-rock originals. The "father of Argentine rock" singer Ciro Fogliatta guested on three tunes, while vocalist/guitarist Jorge Durietz (of Argentine rock duo Pedro y Pablo) contributed to the track "Renancer." The album's first single, "Insomnia," charted. In August, Vergara surprised the South American music industry by releasing the EDM title track single for the Go Corona Go soundtrack. ~ Thom Jurek
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