Gustavo Cerati

Billboard magazine ranked Cerati as the 33rd best rock singer of all time.

Gustavo Adrián Cerati Clarke (11 August 1959 – 4 September 2014) was an Argentine musician, singer-songwriter and record producer, who gained international recognition for being the leader, vocalist, composer and guitarist of the rock band Soda Stereo.

He is widely considered by critics, specialized press and musicians as one of the most important and influential artists of Latin rock.

Cerati was born on 11 August 1959 in Barracas, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He grew up in a middle class household; his paternal family was of Lombard descent and his maternal family was of Irish origin.

His father was an accountant and regularly traveled abroad.

From his early memories he had an idyllic love of the sun and nature.

Cerati's first passion was art and in elementary school he drew comics and created his own comic book characters.

Cerati's parents, Juan José Cerati and Lilian Clarke acquired a guitar for him when he was nine years old, at that point Cerati started to take music seriously, becoming a fanatic of rock and roll:

By the age of 13, he formed a trio and started playing at house parties and in the local Catholic school, where he eventually joined the choir.

Cerati was a good student until his third year of junior high school when he met a fellow student who, like himself, was into rock and roll.

After serving compulsory military service in 1979, Cerati entered the university to pursue a marketing degree, something he was not passionate about.

His family supported him with his music, "Mi familia me vio tan enloquecido con la música, que pensaron que algo de éxito iba a tener" (My family saw that I was so crazy about music, that they thought I would have some success [with it]).

At the Universidad del Salvador, a Jesuit university in Buenos Aires, he met Héctor "Zeta" Bosio, also a marketing student.

The two hit it off and decided to form a band.

They were fans of The Police, The Beatles, XTC, Elvis Costello, Television, and Talking Heads.

Influenced by The Beatles and The Police, Cerati joined various groups during his adolescence, and in 1982 he founded the Latin rock band Soda Stereo.

In 1982, after various lineup changes that included Richard Coleman, Daniel Melero, and Andrés Calamaro as well as others, Bosio and Cerati recruited Charly Alberti as their drummer, thus forming Soda Stereo.

Soda Stereo signed to Discos CBS (the regional branch of Sony Music in Latin America) in 1984 and released their debut LP Soda Stereo that same year.

Nada Personal ("Nothing Personal") followed in 1985 giving Soda Stereo their first hit with "Cuando pase el temblor" ("When The Earthquake Is Past").

Leader and main composer of the group, from Signos (1986) his way of making songs began to mature, and his consolidation reached it at the beginning of the 90s with Canción Animal (1990), in which he returned to the roots of Argentine rock from the 70's. Parallel to his career with the group, in 1992 he published the album Colores Santos as a duet with Daniel Melero, considered one of the first in South America to include electronic music, and the following year he would publish his first as a soloist, Amor Amarillo.

His taste for electronic music led him to incorporate it into his latest works with Soda Stereo.

Soda released Signos ("Signs") in 1986, Doble Vida ("Double Life") (produced by longtime David Bowie collaborator Carlos Alomar) in 1988, and Canción Animal ("Animal Song") in 1990.

During the 1990s Soda Stereo released Dynamo in 1992, Sueño Stereo ("Stereo Dream") in 1995, and their final album Comfort y Música Para Volar ("Comfort and music to fly with") in 1997.

In 1992 Cerati recorded Colores Santos ("Holy Colors") with electronic musician Daniel Melero, a longtime Soda Stereo collaborator.

1993 saw the release of Cerati's first solo album Amor Amarillo ("Yellow Love"), which included the participation of Zeta Bosio and Cerati's wife at the time, the Chilean singer, actress, and model Cecilia Amenábar who sang and appeared in the video for the lead single "Te llevo para que me lleves" ("I'll take you so you can take me").

In 1995 Gustavo Cerati teamed up with three Chilean musicians, Andrés Bucci, Guillermo Ugarte, and Christian Powditch, to form Plan V.

Plan V released two albums Plan V (1996), and Plan Black V Dog (1998), a collaboration with the British electronic music group The Black Dog.

After the separation of the band, he released Bocanada (1999) and Siempre es hoy (2002), where he showed his interest in the genre more than he freely manifested in his alternate projects Plan V and Ocio.

In 1999 Cerati formed the electronic duo Ocio with longtime Soda Stereo collaborator and trumpeter, Flavio Etcheto, releasing Medida Universal.

Around this time Cerati participated in the album Outlandos d'Americas: A Rock en Español Tribute to the Police collaborating with Andy Summers of The Police and Vinnie Colaiuta (Frank Zappa, Sting), on a cover of The Police's "Bring on the Night," (Spanish: Traeme la Noche).

Bocanada ("Puff") was released in 1999 and was regarded as Gustavo Cerati's proper debut as a solo artist.

It was recorded in Estudio CasaSubmarina (Cerati's home studio) in Buenos Aires.

He returned to the rock style with his fourth album, Ahí vamos (2006), which received acclaim from the public and critics, and which contains some of his greatest solo hits, such as "Crimen" and "Adiós".

In 2007, he reunited with Soda Stereo after ten years apart on a tour that brought together more than a million viewers.

In 2010, he was left in a coma after suffering a stroke, after finishing a concert in which he promoted his latest album, Fuerza Natural (2009).

In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked Cerati in seventh place among the 100 best Argentine rock guitarists.

Four years later, on 4 September 2014, Cerati died of cardiac arrest in Buenos Aires aged 55.

Cerati was a prolific session player, he was a guest guitarist on songs by Caifanes, Babasónicos and Los Brujos, and he collaborated on songs with Charly García, Andrés Calamaro, Fito Páez, Shakira, Andy Summers, Roger Waters and Mercedes Sosa, among others.

Throughout his solo career, he has sold more than 10 million records and won numerous awards, including the Latin Grammy, MTV, Konex, and Gardel.