The 5 DE DICIEMBRE 2010 - La Prensa De San Antonio

6-E La Prensa de San Antonio
diciembre 5, 2010
Story and photo
By Ramón Hernández
He may not be Carlos Santana,
but Roberto Valderrama rivals his
idol when his fingers fly over his
guitar strings.
“As a small child, my brother,
Luis Carlos, stood guard at the
door when I first snuck into my
father’s room to tinker with his
guitar,” Valderrama said during
an interview at the Hispanic Entertainment
Archives.
“I was five when my mom
caught me and I thought I was
really going to get it. Instead
she said, ‘Do you really want
to learn?’ Then she made dad’s
guitar accessible when my father,
Antonio, who worked on a ranch,
was gone from Monday to Friday.
On weekends, I would see and
hear him and my Uncles play.
That’s how I learned.”
“My parents knew I loved that
guitar and when I misbehaved at
school, they would punish me by
taking the guitar away.”
As soon as he was tall enough,
his father took him to a compadre
who handmade the string instruments
and had Valderrama pick
out his own guitar.
“My mother then forced my
brother and me to sing and learn
lyrics to songs my dad performed
at fiestas and wound up joining
him on those gigs around Juarez,
Chihuahua, Mexico.”
By Dennis M. Ayotte Jr.
dayotte@laprensasa.com
Roberto Valderrama pays it forward by giving
Monday, December 13 at 7
p.m., The Guadalupe Cultural
Arts Center presents “Cine En
El Barrio,” a monthly film series
showcasing classic and contemporary
work by Latino filmmakers
from across the globe will
kick off.
The event will feature “Where
God Left His Shoes” and “On
the Horizon: Stop Motion Animation.”
The films will be
shown at the Guadalupe Theater
Next, Valderrama found out he
had the innate gift of being able
to duplicate any guitar sounds
on his maternal grandmother’s
on 1301 Guadalupe Street.
“Where God Left His Shoes,”
was directed by Salvatore Stabile
and released in 2007. The
hour and half film stars John
Leguizamo, who plays a father
(Frank) of two. When he along
with his wife and kids are evicted
from their New York City
apartment the family is forced
to move into a homeless shelter.
An opportunity arises for
the family to move into an
apartment in a nearby housing
project, but Frank needs a job
by the end of the day to become
piano. Angela Terrazas, was so
impressed, she sent him to the
music conservatory in Mexico,
D.F. to study for four years.
The Guadalupe Cultural Arts
presents “Cine En El Barrio”
eligible. With his son at his side,
Frank scours the street to find a
job in the blistering cold winter
of New York City.
“On the Horizon: Stop Motion
Animation,” will be a special
program featuring compelling
work by award-winning San
Antonio filmmaker Eric Fonseca
and his 9-year-old protégé, Michael
Wolf Sepulveda.
For tickets call (210) 271-
3151 or visit guadalupeculturalarts.org
or more information.
General admission is $4 and free
to all GCAC members.
Valderrama’s turning point
came when he got hooked on rock
n’ roll. However, he was unable
to play it because he had been
brought up on Mexican music.
While in the conservatory and
studying classical music, his heart
still belonged to rock music. So
he spent most of the allowance
money his grandmother sent him
on concerts.
“In 1972, a few classmates
and I went to see Santana when
did three concerts in Puebla.
However, on the third night, we
hung around outside with about
100 other people from the conservatory
because we didn’t have
the money for admission,” the
59-year-old guitarist said.
As luck would have it, movie
soundtrack composer Sergio
Gutiérrez plus actors Héctor
Lechuga and Xavier López Rodríguez
a.k.a. Chabelo saw the
group of diehard dedicated fans
and paid for all of them to go in.
At one point in the show, Santana
asked the audience if anyone
wanted to come up on stage and
play with him and all of Valderrama’s
friends pointed to him,
then they and his friend, Javier
Batiz, dragged him all the way to
the stage, but Valderrama refused
to go up. However, he did stay
there to watch his idol in action.
After the show ended, Valderrama
and a couple of his friends
went between a bodyguard’s legs
and ran to Santana, who bowed
and hugged them. Before they
were pulled away by security,
they got an invite to join Santana
at a private VIP party at the home
of Manuel “El Loco” Valdés
Castillo.
“That party was the max for
me,” Valderrama said with a joyful
face.
After hearing Valderrama play,
Santana pulled him aside and said,
see Roberto Valderrama pg 12-E