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 His artistic personality is important because of his great compositions,
but also because he was one of the pioneers in the usage of piano in popular
music. He was born in Montevideo on November 7th, 1877 and when
he was a child his family moved to Buenos Aires. When he was still very
young, he became a piano enthusiastic, and he learnt how to play it on his
own, since he could not afford taking lessons. He used to say that he had
never decided to learn piano formally because he thought the musical notes
were difficult. In 1899, when he presented his first tango, “Sargento
Cabral” (“Sergeant Cabral”), he had to ask a friend of him to write it
on the staff. As a professional pianist
he began his career in carnival parties and dancing salons in Buenos Aires.
He became famous very quickly and became one of the most recognized artists.
It is believed that he never played in a group and that during all of his
career he devoted himself to perform brilliantly with his instrument as a
soloist. He was one of the first artists who recorded an album and he left
some magnificent piano solos which show his great abilities as a pianist. In
some of those albums also appeared as vocalists Linda Thelma and Angel
Villoldo; and in some others, he was accompanied by Higinio Cazón and
Gabino Ezeiza. Undoubtedly, Campoamor´s music was vital for those new
generations that renewed tango. However, this influence was not desired or
wanted by him, since he definitely was a conservative artist. He believed
that tango production was huge at that time because of the large amount of
composers. That was the reason he decided to retire and live on commercial
activities. Maybe he could not understand the strange paradox: his
virtuosity had contributed immensely to consolidate that sensibility he was
rejecting. He died in Buenos Aires, on April 29th, 1941.
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