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Quilapayún

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Chilean group at the centre of nueva canción since 1965, black ponchos and stacked male voices behind 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido.' Decades of the repertoire carried through exile in France.

Quilapayún began in 1965 when Julio Numhauser and the brothers Julio and Eduardo Carrasco formed a trio nicknamed 'the three bearded men,' rendered as Quila-Payún in Mapudungun. Their first public shows were at the Universidad de Chile in Valparaíso, organized by Ángel Parra, son of Violeta Parra, who briefly served as their first musical director.

The group became one of the defining ensembles of nueva canción chilena alongside Inti-Illimani and Víctor Jara. Jara, met in Valparaíso in 1966, took over as musical director, shaping their stage discipline and introducing them to Odeon Records, where they recorded five albums; the black ponchos they adopted around this time became a lasting trademark.

Quilapayún worked with Sergio Ortega on 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido,' a song that traveled far beyond Chile into protest movements elsewhere. In 1967 they recorded Canciones folklóricas de América with Jara, replaced founding member Numhauser with Guillermo 'Willy' Oddó, and toured the USSR, Italy and France.

Their arrangements set unison and harmony male voices against charango, quena and guitar. In 1968 the group helped launch the DICAP label, and their album X Vietnam became a nationwide hit that established the group's thematic direction; DICAP went on to record dozens of releases before the label was destroyed after the 1973 coup.

The coup caught the group abroad, and they settled in France, continuing to record and perform for years. Membership shifted repeatedly across the decades, and disputes over the name eventually produced two separate lineups performing as Quilapayún, one based in Chile and one in France.

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