José Antonio Labordeta Subías

Date of Birth: March 10, 1935

Date of Died: September 19, 2010

Biography

José Antonio Labordeta was born in Zaragoza, he was a Spanish singer-songwriter, writer, politician and teacher. Son of Miguel Labordeta and Sara Subías, he is the fourth of five siblings, including the great poet Miguel Labordeta, whose vital and intellectual influence will be very present throughout his life.

He attends his primary studies at the German School of Zaragoza and at the Santo Tomás de Aquino School, owned by the Labordeta family, and at the end of the Baccalaureate he enrolls in Law, a career that he abandons two years later and enrolls in Philosophy and Letters, where he graduated in 1960. For a few months he settled in Aix-en-Provence, where he worked as a lecturer at the university. During his university years, José Antonio displayed a great literary activity: he founded the Orejudín magazine and published in Papageno, magazines created under the umbrella of the Nike gathering and the OPI (International Poetic Office).

In 1959 he published his first collection of poems, entitled Sucede el Pensamiento. It will be the first in a long list of books of poems, memoirs, novels and travels that he will publish throughout his life. On September 29, 1964, he married Juana de Grandes, with whom he would have three daughters, Ana, Ángela and Paula, and two granddaughters, Marta and Carmela.

That same year he passed the examinations for Secondary Education as a professor of Geography, History and Art and was assigned to the INB Ibáñez Martín de Teruel, the city where he lived for six years. Both in the Institute and in the Colegio Menor San Pablo, he develops a great teaching and cultural activity together with other colleagues and students with whom he will establish a long and fruitful friendship. In 1968 he timidly began his activity as a singer-songwriter with the recording of Andros II, a four-song EP published by Edumsa that would be seized by government order, and in 1969 he participated in the filming of Monegros, by director Antonio Artero, which they would continue with Over the years numerous works in film and television. After ending the Teruel period, he returned to Zaragoza in 1970, where he continued teaching at the El Buen Pastor school and at the IB Ramón Pignatelli. In 1972 he founded, together with a colleague and friend from the Teruel Institute Eloy Fernández Clemente, the cultural magazine Andalán, in which he collaborated very actively until his disappearance in 1987.

In 1974 he published his first LP, Cantar i callar, in the prestigious Chant du Monde collection. It is a cultural event of great importance. Until the end of his life, José Antonio Labordeta will continue to give concerts uninterrupted and record emblematic songs such as “Aragón”, “Canto a la Libertad”, “Somos” or “La Albada”. That same year he received the San Jorge Award from the DPZ. In 1976 José-Carlos Mainer published in Lumen a first poetic anthology of José Antonio Labordeta.

Parallel to his intense cultural and teaching work, he participated very actively in the creation of the PSA (Socialist Party of Aragon), which the following year would be integrated into the PSP (Popular Socialist Party) of Tierno Galván. In March 1983 the PSA is dissolved. Starting in 1985, he requested a leave of absence from the Pignatelli Institute to dedicate himself fully to music, literature and journalism, areas in which he would develop an intense activity that would result in the publication of numerous works. During the 1990s, he made a country in the back pack for TVE, a project in which he recorded excellent documentaries about rural Spain.

In June 1986, the Chunta Aragonesista (CHA) was born, a left-wing Aragonese formation with which he became a deputy in the Cortes of Aragón (1999) and in Congress for two terms (2000-2008). During all those years, Labordeta will always bring a different note in the way of doing politics. A staunch defender of the No to the war in Iraq and against the Ebro Transfer, some of his parliamentary confrontations will be notorious, such as the one in which he blurted out his famous phrase “Fuck it” to some Popular Party deputies who were constantly interrupting him in his intervention.

Principal of Zaragoza with the presence of the city and regional authorities and numerous artists and friends of the honoree.

Parallel to the tribute at the Teatro Principal, the Rolde de Estudios Aragonese and the SGAE publish the book-tribute José Antonio Labordeta. Creation, commitment, memory, in which almost a hundred teachers, writers, artists and politicians participate. In 2010 the University of Zaragoza appointed him Doctor Honoris Causa. The last public act was carried out on September 6, 2010, when Carme Chacón, Minister of Defence, and Ángel Gabilondo, Minister of Education, presented him with the Grand Cross of the Order of Alfonso X the Wise at his home; a recognition that the Government granted him for his wisdom, his passion, his convictions and his defense of freedom. José Antonio Labordeta Subías died in the early hours of September 19, 2010, at the Miguel Servet Hospital in Zaragoza, at the age of 75, due to prostate cancer that had been diagnosed in 2006, and which forced to remain bedridden at home the last months of his life. After his death, the displays of mourning and affection inside and outside Aragón were massive.

Discografia