Los Incas

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Los Incas is an Andean music group that formed in Paris in 1956. Argentine and Venezuelan musicians founded it. Since the early 1960s the group has been led by the Argentine Jorge Milchberg, who plays the charango and was originally a classically trained pianist. It is also known as Urubamba.

Music and breakthrough

In 1965 Simon & Garfunkel and Los Incas both performed at the Théâtre de l'Est parisien, after which a friendship arose between Paul Simon and the group. There the group also played an instrumental version of El Cóndor Pasa. The piece goes back to the Peruvian composer Daniel Alomía Robles, who wrote the music in 1913. Simon added If I Could to the title and wrote lyrics for it. Los Incas accompanied the duo on Bridge Over Troubled Water. The song became a worldwide hit, and the group's own version reached number five in the Top 40 in 1970.

Influence

Later the group played on Paul Simon's Duncan and in the early 1970s toured with him under the name Urubamba. Until 1982 albums appeared under that name, after which it went back to Los Incas. The line-up includes the quena, the charango and the guitar. In this way the group brought Andean music to a Western audience.

Listening

• 
  El Cóndor Pasa · Los Incas, 1913

Discography

Studio albums

• 1977Rio abierto
• 1983Un instant d'éternité
• 1987La Porte Du Silence
• 1988Alegria
• 1988El Cóndor Pasa
• 1992From the Other Side of the Volcano
• 2002El último
• 2017Chants et danses d’Amérique Latine