Festival OTI Lasting Impact on Latin Music
If popular TV show “The Voice” occurred once a year and the contestants were each representing their Ibero-American country, you’d get the essence of the Festival OTI.
Just like in “The Voice”, the Festival OTI served as a platform to launch the careers of several Latin music icons even when they didn’t win the competition. I’ll provide a list of those below.
Festival OTI: Origins & Prestige
The 1st official “Festival OTI” took place in Spain in 1972, but it’s true origin was in the 1969 “Festival de la Canción Latina” held in Mexico City. After a 2nd edition in 1970, it regrouped in 1972 as the “Festival OTI de la Canción”.
Just like “The Voice”, “America Got Talent”, and the many other similar singing competition TV shows in various countries, the Festival OTI started as a show for TV, and got its name from the “Organizacion de Telecomunicaciones Iberoamericana” a conglomerate of TV stations.
The original purpose of the “Festival OTI” was to promote artistic collaboration between Ibero-American countries (countries in the Americas that are former colonies of Portugal and Spain).
The Pride and Pressure of an International Music Competition
The “Festival OTI” provided a doorway to a music career of international fame. But when the stakes are so high, so is the pressure for each country and artist. Take as example the case of Joan Manuel Serrat.
Just a year before the first edition of the “Festival OTI”, Spain, who had masterminded the creation of the “Festival de la Canción” which became the OTI, had selected Joan Manuel as their representative for the 1968 Festival Eurovision, the European version of the international signing competition.
The Festival Eurovision has been running since 1956, and in ’68 it would take place in the Royal Theater in London. Serrat was to sing “La la la”, but decided he wanted to sing it in his native Catalan language. Despite his surging popularity as an upcoming talent in Spain, the Franco regime quickly replaced him as Spain’s representative.
And so in 1969, the “Festival de la Canción Latina” debuted with its 1st edition from Mexico City. The Festival was transmitted “live” via satellite to all participating countries in Latin America and Spain, which enabled each country to have judges voting remotely.
Sidebar: keep in mind the transmitting something “live” via satellite was a big deal back in 1969. Those transmissions were reserved for special events, like Major League All-Star or World Series games, and the first landing on the moon, which would occur a few month after the festival.
The Festival gathered a lot of attention and I can remember as a kid all the press and anticipation to see how Puerto Rico would do in such competition. Each country sent their best young talent to represent them!
Festival OTI Made Latin Music Stars:
The winner of the first “Festival de la Cancion” in Mexico City was Lucecita Benitez (Puerto Rico) with the song “Genesis”. That year, Brazil’s Denise de Kalafe finished 2nd, and Jose Luis Rodriguez (Venezuela) took 3rd place with “No, No Puede Ser”, a song that would become very popular.
Here’s a very scratchy video of Lucecita Benitez singing “Genesis”.
In the aftermath of her win, Lucecita’s career took a sharp rise, to the point of having her own TV show in Puerto Rico and being invited to the prestigious Ed Sullivan show in the US, singing in Spanish while having the great Cuban percussionist Candido backing her.
The Festival OTI served to launch the careers of many artists. However, like in “The Voice” and similar singing competitions, winning not always guaranteed artistic success, and loosing was not always a career fatality.
Jose Luis Rodriguez finished 3rd in 1969, but went on to have a very successful career. The following year, Mexican José José also finished 3rd, but had a much more successful career than 1st place finisher Claudya of Brazil. El Principe competed with the song “El Triste”, which remained as a favorite of his repertoire to this day!
After the 2nd “Festival de la Canción Latina”, the competition took a 1 year hiatus to regroup the concept, and it came back in 1972 with the new name “Festival OTI de la Canción”, with Spain being the host country that year, as different countries took turns hosting the event in following years.
The “Festival OTI” ran uninterrupted for 28 years. The popularity remained high through the early 80’s. But after that, the quality of contestants began to degrade, and the voting integrity began to be questioned. The last edition of the Festival OTI was held in 2000.
In those 28 editions of the “Festival OTI”, many singers got their first significant international exposure. Some of the ones I haven’t mentioned were Camilo Sesto (Spain), Yuri (Mexico), Ednita Nazario (Puerto Rico), Alvaro Torres (El Salvador), Ricardo Arjona (Guatemala), Charytín Goyco (Dominican Republic), Rafael José (Puerto Rico – 1980 winner) , Eugenia León (Mexico – 1985 winner), Joan Sebastian (Mexico), Eva Ayllon (Peru), Ana Gabriel (Mexico), Nydia Caro (Puerto Rico – 1974 winner), Gianmarco (Peru), Lolita de la Colina (Mexico), Chucho Avellanet (Puerto Rico), and Basilio (Panama – 1972 2nd place).
The “Festival OTI” created Latin music history, and perhaps in the future, with all the popularity of signing TV shows, it may resurge with a new format.