Fito Páez

Date of birth March 13, 1963

Biography

Rodolfo Páez, better known as Fito Páez, is an Argentine rock musician and composer. He’s also director and film storyboard maker. Due to the quality and repercussion of his musical works, he is considered one of the greatest rock composers in Argentina, along with Charly García, Luis Alberto Spinetta and Andrés Calamaro. His album Love after love, released in 1992, is the best-selling in the history of Argentine rock.

Rodolfo “Fito” Páez was born in Rosario on Wednesday, March 13, 1963. Son of Margarita Zulema Ávalos (concert pianist, arithmetic and algebra teacher) and Rodolfo Páez (municipal employee).

The house at 861 Balcarce Street located in the macro center of Rosario received the little boy full of sounds of classical European music, with his mother playing Brahms and Liszt on the concert piano placed in the living room.

Only eight months passed and his mother, only 33 years old, died after suffering from liver cancer, so his upbringing remained in the hands of his father, his paternal grandmother Delia Zulema Ramírez, widow of Páez, to whom the little ” Rodolfito” would baptize as “Belia”, and from his great-aunt, Josefa Páez.

He attended elementary school at the Mariano Moreno public school, on Calle Paraguay, reaching Calle 3 de Febrero. As a child, he used to take school transport and then he continued to attend, climbing the 200 bus.

In March 1976, a week before the military coup in Argentina, he started high school at a famous private educational institute in the city, the Dante Alighieri school. He was a regular student and suffered the punishment of reprimands -long hair, cigarettes and not shutting up when he thought he was right, made him experience several bad moments-.

At the age of 14, he was already wearing glasses to counteract myopia, when he fell in love with Miriam, his first girlfriend, a classmate with whom he had an affair as children. Kisses, movies and walks through the Urquiza Park in Rosario.

At that age he began to take piano lessons at the Scarafía Institute located in front of his house, although he already knew how to play since he was a child. He had a very particular method of study, memory and hearing, he did not read scores, although his teacher always thought otherwise. His talent began to be noticed very soon. When the class finished, he rushed home to execute the last lesson learned. His brief musical apprenticeship of almost a year was completed with private classes given by Mrs. de Bustos at her home.