José Fernando Arbex Miró (18 May 1941 – 5 July 2003) was an influential Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

 and songwriter

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

 from Madrid

Madrid

Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, who enjoyed success both with his own groups and also with other artists.

While still in his teens, he was the drummer

Drummer

A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...

 in Los Estudiantes, and in 1965 he formed the very successful pop

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

 band Los Brincos

Los Brincos

Los Brincos were one of the most successful Spanish rock bands of the 1960s, and they are often referred to as the “Spanish Beatles”.The group was formed in 1964. The members were Fernando Arbex , Manuel González , Juan Pardo and Antonio ‘Junior’ Morales...

 (often seen as the "Spanish Beatles") in which he also played drums. After that group split in the late 1960s, Arbex formed the progressive Latin rock trio Alacran with Iñaki Egaña

Iñaki Egaña

Ignacio "Iñaki" Egaña Azpeitia is a Spanish musician and songwriter, active since the late 1960s in various rock and blues groups and as a solo artist...

 and Oscar Lasprilla. When Lasprilla left the band and moved to England, Arbex and Egaña founded the Latin disco and rock-orientated Barrabás

Barrabás

Barrabás are a Spanish musical group, most successful in the 1970s and 1980s, when they were led by drummer Fernando Arbex. The group's musical style was initially Latin rock with jazz and funk influences, and later developed into a more disco-orientated sound.-History:Arbex formed Barrabás in 1971...

, who went on to considerable European success throughout the 1970s. Their most successful hit single "Woman" found its way on to the charts in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

Alongside his career as a musician, Arbex acted as a producer and songwriter for many successful acts, including Jose Feliciano

José Feliciano

José Feliciano is a Puerto Rican singer, virtuoso guitarist and composer known for many international hits including the 1970 holiday single "Feliz Navidad".-Childhood:...

, Harry Belafonte

Harry Belafonte

Harold George "Harry" Belafonte, Jr. is an American singer, songwriter, actor and social activist. He was dubbed the "King of Calypso" for popularizing the Caribbean musical style with an international audience in the 1950s...

, Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri

Nana Mouskouri , born Ioánna Moúschouri on October 13, 1934, in Chania, Crete, Greece, is a Greek singer who has sold about 300 million records worldwide in a career spanning over five decades, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time. She was known as Nána to her friends and...

, Emilio Aragón, Miguel Bosé

Miguel Bosé

Miguel Dominguín Bosé is a Latin Grammy-winning Spanish/Italian musician and actor.-Early life:Bosé was born in San Fernando Hospital in Panama City, Panama, the son of the famous Italian actress Lucia Bosé and the legendary bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín. He is also a cousin of Carmen...

 and Middle of the Road. He also recorded works outside the world of popular music, such as his musical "La Maja de Goya", and music for cinema

Film

A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...

 and ballet

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...

.

In 2000, he reformed Los Brincos for an extremely successful special concert in A Coruña

A Coruña

A Coruña or La Coruña is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. It is the second-largest city in the autonomous community and seventeenth overall in the country...

, and also recorded with a reformed Barrabás.

Fernando Arbex died in 2003 after a long illness.

External links

• Profile page for Fernando Arbex on the Find A Grave
  Find A Grave
  Find a Grave is a commercial website providing free access and input to an online database of cemetery records. It was founded in 1998 as a DBA and incorporated in 2000.-History:...
  
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