Francisco Xavier was one of Mexico’s most talented artists in the 1980s and 1990s, yet his path to success was marked by suspicions and terrible events that shaped his fate. (Video recording from the “Aires de Grandeza” podcast via YouTube)
In the 1980s and the beginning of the following years Francis Xavier He was one of the most popular singers in Mexico because he was Lucero’s friend but also for hits like “Let us live”, “What is freedom” and “Forgive me” that he performed in the program “Siempre en domingo” where he was, one of the few artists who managed to take part almost every weekend. In addition, he was a winner of the OTI Festival.
However, despite an active career spanning 11 years and managing to sell almost eight million records from the 19 albums he has recorded in the ballad, bolero and art genres, the singer is Due to distrust of Emilio Azcárraga and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, he was on the verge of losing that musical experience.
A native of Apan, Hidalgo, Francisco Xavier Berganza Escorza was the last of a large family (he is the ninth child) and has shown artistic talent since childhood. According to him, his first composition or his first attempt at it came about after the death of one of his sisters from leukemia. It was the only way to vent and express his sadness and it was through a song that he keeps. “From that moment on, I became addicted to writing, adding to my music and doing things,” he told The Minute That Changed My Destiny.
Despite this sensitivity his true hobby was bullfighting and he looked for an excuse to deal with the bulls and even dreamed of becoming a matador. He once traveled to Mexico City from his hometown of Hidalgo in hopes that his uncle, bullfighter businessman Chucho Arroyo, would give him a shot at the Plaza México he ran, but he turned it down, mistaking him for a boy Man who was only looking for an adventure. More and no real obligation.
His father didn’t take him seriously either, but the then 18-year-old was unwavering in his interest and so he depended on a career that left him free to do as he pleased. “I saw a spot on TV with Silvia Pinal and a very important journalist, Guillermo Pérez Verduzco, announcing a new school, a University of Journalism and Arts in Radio and Television (PART), and I see that I could finish my journalism degree in two years. The opportunity to win a title in a relatively short period of time brought him back to the Mexican capital.
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However, his father again conditioned him and only gave him the money for his studies; Everything connected with accommodation and subsistence had to be borne by him.
1985, the year that changed everything
Francisco
PART’s teaching staff included Ernesto Villanueva, then information manager for Guillermo Ochoa, owner of Hoy Mismo, a program well remembered every year for its live broadcast of the 8.1 magnitude earthquake in Mexico City on September 19th .
Villanueva was Francisco Xavier’s teacher and in a way his benefactor too, as he would occasionally give him a cake (remember his father didn’t help him financially) and later discovered his enormous talent.
One day before class, the aspiring bullfighter delighted his classmates with the guitar, and when he saw the teacher coming, he stopped. His teacher asked him not to do this and also made him record a full tape to keep from failing the whole class. In reality, his plan was to introduce him to Ochoa.
“Don Ernesto plays the tape for Don Guillermo. ,Who’s there? Invite him to the program.’ (My teacher) comes and tells me: ‘A taxi will pick you up at six in the morning and you will too.’ The program “Today,” I told him he was crazy, “my father will kill me, he will kill me if he sees me there!” Awesome.
Thanks to this transfer, his destiny was to change, especially after he did it fascinated Paula Cussi, then wife of the all-powerful Emilio Azcárraga Milmo.
Sidney Picasso (left) and Paula Cussi (right) in New York in 2013 (Photo: Luc Castel/GettyImages).
Francisco Xavier’s lecture was a complete success. Various record companies started calling the program, but the most important thing happened at Tigre Azcárraga’s house.
“A very strange issue occurred: Mr. Emilio Azcárraga was married to Paula Cussi and they were watching the program at his house, but he was in the bathroom. Paula, his wife, went to get him from the bathroom “This boy”, “What do I see?”, “This boy, talk, help him”, he said. Almost at the same time, his uncle Chucho Arroyo contacted the Televisa forum and asked the up-and-coming artist not to sign a contract.
But Azcárraga’s power was greater and Francisco Xavier was taken to the Melody record label he owned, where he recorded him. Jaime Almeida, one of the most important musicologists in the country. “I don’t know how the hell you’re singing, I haven’t seen the program, that’s an order from Mr. Azcárraga, it’s not your job to grow up or anything,” he told her.
The inexperienced young man would not be pressured, let alone intimidated, and he was so candid that he asked: “‘Hey, and who is Mr. Azcárraga?’ Jaime never forgot that anecdote, and it was so true that I didn’t sign it, it didn’t hit me.”.
While searching for a record label he was comfortable with, the 1985 earthquake struck, an experience that shaped him in every way. “16 friends died in my classroom, it was something horrible and for me it was my excuse to go back to the city. I left, the city was chaos.” Among the people who Also missing were his teacher and discoverer Ernesto Villanueva and Félix Sordo (another key journalist from Televisa and XEW).
A month later, Francisco Xavier had to return to Villanueva for the funeral mass and there he met Ochoa, who accused him of missing the opportunity that arose thanks to the discovery of his deceased collaborator.
He returned to Hoy mismo several more times and six months later the singer had flown to Spain to record his first album with Rafael Pérez Botija, an arranger and music producer who also made famous other artists such as José José, Rocío Dúrcal and Lucero record.
Despite his achievements in music, he decided to leave the medium due to overwork. In the same conversation, he admits that his inexperience with the medium and the absence of characters like Raúl Velasco, who programmed him on Siempre en Domingo almost every weekend, left him mentally exhausted. This and his desire to start a family forced him to give up his career.
Francisco Xavier stayed away from the show and later sought opportunities in politics, where he tried unsuccessfully to become governor of his hometown of Hidalgo.