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"Harmonizing on Alcala" 
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Rolling down the cobbled streets of the Alcala comes a sound familiar to local shopkeepers and frequent strollers alike -- the crooning of traditional bolero ballads by Oaxaca's own Fidencio Martinez Santos. Planted in the shade of the city's walls, crouched low against the sidewalk, Santos clutches his acoustic guitar close to his body. Picking a few bass notes as introduction, he then strums away, establishing the rhythm of his song. He bends his neck skyward, and let's loose the tale in an ageless falsetto. The sun glints down on his dark sunglasses, reflecting back at spectators, but he cannot see them. Blinded at the age of ten, Santos struggled in the dark for the next ten years. Without cause or career, Santos describes that time as lonely and with bitterness, until he found his mentor in a local bread maker. "I used to see, but I got screwed when I was ten. I got the viruela, and lost my sight," he says. Viruela is the Spanish name for the lethal smallpox virus. Though outbreaks were not uncommon when Santos was a child in the thirties and forties, it was supposedly wiped out worldwide in 1977.
Santos spent his teen years learning to cope with his blindness. At the age of twenty, his luck took a turn when he struck up a friendship with a local bread maker, who began teaching him guitar. "Since I was single, I used to go and hang out at the bread maker's everyday. He would teach me a little every day," said Santos. "After a while he told me I was smart, that I was going to be a strong guitar player, because I was learning everything he was teaching me. 'You are going to do fine,' he told me."
By the time Santos' tutelage came to an end, the baker had not only taught him the rudiments of guitar, but instructed him in the style of traditional folk boleros. Santos spent his early twenties splitting his time between the bread maker's shop and practicing everyday at his home in the San Jose barrio of Zaachila, a small town just south of Oaxaca City. At that point, he was able to employ various tunings and play his favorite songs, literally feeling his way across the fretboard, memorizing the sounds of various notes.
By the age of 25, Santos felt he had become accomplished enough to ply his trade on the streets of Oaxaca "I knew Oaxaca. I used to come to the city with my parents when I was little and could still see," he says. It was the natural destination for a man in search of an audience and a living, so Santos came to town and began his career.
At that point, he had incorporated the lessons taught him by the bread maker with the songs he had heard played over the radio, on turntables, and by the mariachis wandering the city squares -- los zócalos. He says he derives his style from many influences, incorporating different styles over the years, but never forsakes his first mentor.
"I have many influences," says Santos. "There are so many...Javier Solis, Jose Alfredo, Vicente Fernandez, Pedro Infante, and bands like Los Terricolas, Los Costenos, Caminantes and Los Panchos. I try to blend my influences, but it all started with a bread maker. He told me that tuning is the first step in playing the guitar."
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Santos says the key to playing any bolero is to know the variable tunings used in different songs since, like most Latin tunes, boleros are based on rhythm and not chords. He says he's able to play most songs in 'B minor' or 'C major'. Though he prefers the Cuban boleros, it is not unknown to hear the occasional rancheras and corridos, (traditional Mexican folk-songs) coming from his guitar.
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Now 65-years old, Santos has shared his passion for music and Latin folk-songs with countless people, drawing admirers from literally all over the world. He has played with many other local musicians, but apparently, none have made it through time to Santos' ripe old age. He recalls only the first names of three partners over the years, with the brevity of either grief or fading memory, as all have since passed on.
"First there was Daniel, then others named Juan and Manuel, who used to accompany me. But they have all since died," he says.
While one hopes these names spark local remembrance, their music lives on. Santos and the others had made numerous recordings over the years, usually for foreigners passing through who'd pay them to record on some equipment rigged up in a local hotel room.
Santos says he just recently made a recording with a gringo for 400 pesos. Though we couldn't find anything yet available online, don't be surprised if you find his music turning up for sale soon on the internet. Older recordings could also likely be found in collector's shops -- look for bolero or Latin 'folk-ballad' compilations on vinyl.
Though Santos has been playing for 40 years, it hasn't been the most profitable of pursuits. Though those who have recorded him have paid him well for an hour or two's worth of work, it is a one-time payment, while they may be reaping thousands of dollars in sales without paying Santos or any of the other musicians a peso in royalties. Yet, he gets by on his earnings, which he marks as a peso here or there, and an occasional hundred.
The horizon holds more for Santos and listeners alike. He now occasionally collaborates with another guitarist making the rounds, nicknamed Chaparrito who's also blind. The two will be found harmonizing along the Alcala on weekends, where Santos can be found playing daily during the week.
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by Jamie Luck
This article was brought to you courtesy of iccoax.com Spanish language school in Oaxaca
 MORE Oaxaca Stories:
"ONLY SO I CAN LEARN TO SAY KISS ME"
WEAVING MEANING INTO CLOTH
ART IN PROGRESS
JUCHITAN, and the Authentic Searchers for Danger
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