DePedro (from Calexico) new solo album and download

Free Download - DePedro - Don't Leave Me Now from the self-titled debut album by DePedro (click on downward arrow to download)

DePedro – a name chosen because it sounded “kind of Mediterranean, kind of Spanish” – is the musical project of singer and guitarist Jairo Zavala. His first solo project, DePedro is the culmination of years of writing and playing songs for others, including Spanish star Amparanoia, Spanish instrumental surf phenoms Los Coronas and as the touring guitarist for Calexico, not to mention as frontman and founder of Vacazul and 3000 Hombres, both renowned bands in the respective Spanish rock and blues scenes. He will be touring this summer with Calexico as part of the band, as well as supporting them for their European shows. As DePedro, he has also appeared at SXSW, the WOMAD festival, at the nationally-broadcast Spanish Music Awards, and at various other festivals across the country.

Zavala grew up in Madrid listening to both the pre-WWII songs his grandparents used to play and the music his Peruvian father brought back from his travels to Latin America and Africa, as well the rock from the 70s and 80s that was popular in Spain. He credits these various influences for helping to shape his own style of guitar playing, one that pulled from blues, folk, flamenco, Afrobeat, Latin, and rock.

This is Tex-Mex border music meets the Spanish sense of melody, and songs like “La Memoria,” which was inspired by a trip to Mexico and the poverty and injustice he saw there, and “Como El Viento,” a kind of love song, reflect both equally. On “Don’t Leave Me Now,” Jairo’s voice – warm and expressive, but edged with a scratchiness that makes it as much of a focal point as his guitar playing – draws out the same Spanish melancholy also heard in Amparanoia’s version. Yet there’s a slyness there, enhanced by Calexico’s Joey Burns’ upright bass, and it gives the song a sultry, dusty Western feel, the expanse of the land stretching out before them.

The result is a personable, vibrant album that celebrates Zavala’s many influences and inspirations while retaining a warmth and a center that engages and entertains. It’s the product of a lifetime spent listening and observing and playing, of living; it’s Jairo Zavala and everything he’s done, but most of all, it’s DePedro