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Welcome to the Official Santa Esmeralda MySpace Site
Bienvenue au Site Officiale de Santa Esmeralda MySpace

      Just like Santa Esmeralda's music is universal in nature, combining elements and rhythms from different cultures to make a totally unique brew, the Santa Esmeralda story has similar underpinnings.  It begins with the creative force behind its origins, Leroy Gomez, a native of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.  At age 14, Leroy formed his own band, and later joined the group “Tavarez”, and with them toured the USA, Canada and then Europe. The Tavares brothers enlisted the talents of their young friend Gomez, being quite proficient for his age on saxophone and also possessing an amazing voice.  They played gigs around town and eventually had regional success becoming extremely popular in Boston and surrounding areas.  The success spread through North America and the boys soon found themselves touring to Europe for a series of gigs, starting with Italy.  While in Paris, Leroy impressed many local musicians and was invited to play on a recording session that a rising English rock star was presiding over.  The English rocker turned out to be none other than Elton John and the album he was in the midst of recording was the now classic Yellow Brick Road on which young Leroy played saxophone.

While gaining momentum, Leroy found himself becoming more and more captivated with Europe.  He loved Italy so much that he decided to leave Tavarez to stay in Europe and see the rest of this new land.  When the Tavarez brothers returned to the States, the band was without a sax player.  Leroy, determined to go it alone, decided to stay in Europe and cast his fate to the wind.  He went to Paris, where very quickly he became one of the top session saxophone players and vocalists, appearing on many of the big French hits of the day and working with many great artists such as Gilbert Becaud, Claude Francois, Patrick Juvet and others.
 

During this time the Euro-Disco phenomenon was in full bloom and exploding worldwide.  Leroy began having grand ideas of his own and soon the temperature would be right for Santa Esmeralda.  He had a fond appreciation for Flamenco rhythms, and the energy of disco music seemed to beg for more style, more flair, more... something, and something was brewing indeed.  During one of Leroy's many recording sessions he met two producer/songwriters who took the pen names Nicolas Skorsky and Jean Manuel de Scarano.  Skorsky and Scarano had just started up a little record label named Fauves Puma and were eager to work with some fresh new talent.  Their collaboration with Leroy gave birth to something wholly unique and special.  Leroy's idea of combining flamenco rhythms with a disco beat proved to be nothing short of genius.  They took the Animals classic hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" and transformed it to an entirely new work of art.  Leroy named the new sound Santa Esmeralda.  The record was released in the summer of 1977 with "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" taking up an entire side of the vinyl album.  Within a month the song exploded up the charts and caught fire worldwide.  Neil Bogart's Casablanca Records, the famous disco label from the seventies, picked up the album for worldwide distribution in 1978.  When all was said and done, the album broke the world record of album sales with 15 million records sold within the space of a few months and the track "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" skyrocketed to 1 on the club charts in both Europe and America. It reached 25 on the Billboard album charts, selling Gold, while the single peaked at 15.

Santa Esmeralda used some of the best session musicians around, to combine elements of rock with flamenco, salsa, and other Latin musical styles into a unique and one of a kind Euro-Disco sound.  Their 16-minute flamenco disco rock recording of The Animals' "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood", sung fiercefully and soulfully by Leroy Gomez, went on to become the world's best selling single before Saturday Night Fever.

Leroy received rave revues from all over the world as he toured non-stop.  The Santa Esmeralda stage show resembled a gypsy caravan with exotic dancers in Spanish gypsy type costumes with Leroy taking center stage looking for all intents and purposes like a gypsy pirate.  The adoring public fell in love with it and Leroy Gomez became an international sensation as Santa Esmeralda turned into a household name.

Things could not have gone better for Leroy, he achieved stardom but more importantly he found the love of his life with a beautiful dancer in his troop named Tequila.  Her visage became synonymous with the name Santa Esmeralda as her dark gypsy looks graced the album covers of most Santa Esmeralda releases, and was the original girl in the now famous photo that appeared on the European edition of "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood".

Leroy composed the words to "You're My Everything" for Tequila, and the song would come to identify their relationship over the years.  The song became a very popular wedding theme through the years for thousands of others worldwide and remains so to this day.

Released in early 1978, Santa Esmeralda's second album The House of the Rising Sun, featured a very popular Disco Latin cover of the song "House Of The Rising Sun". The album peaked at 41 in the USA. In the fall of 1979 Santa Esmeralda released the album Another Cha-Cha. A rousing 14-minute Latin track "Another Cha-Cha", was a massive club hit. These two albums featured singer Jimmy Goings on lead vocals, who went on to record 6 albums with Santa Esmeralda between 1978-1982, in addition to touring with a road band version of Santa Esmeralda (not the same musicians as in the studio albums).

Santa Esmeralda has been comprised of many talented producers, musicians, composers and arrangers.  These individuals include first and foremost Leroy Gomez, Nicolas Skorsky, Jean Manuel de Scarano, as well as Jean-Claude Petit, José Souc, Slim Pezin, Don Ray and Christian Padovan. Santa Esmeralda's unique sound is well known for its use of Spanish guitars, something which Leroy Gomez had a passion to incorporate into the Esmeralda sound from the start.  On the first two albums we can hear some incredible Latin/Jazz guitar playing which is highlighted in the Esmeralda/Quasimodo Suites.  These Spanish guitars were played by José Souc, an exceptionally talented and versatile guitarist from France. Over the years, Santa Esmeralda has continued to make use of the Spanish guitar in a variety of repertoire.
 

Leroy Gomez, lead vocalist and creative force behind Santa Esmeralda, has been touring and leading group for many years now.  Today he is actively involved with Santa Esmeralda, touring across Europe, and has also re-recorded many of the popular Santa Esmeralda songs in addition to new material.

He has played saxophone on the popular Elton John album, “Yellow Brick Road”.

His first success was a single titled “Here We Go Round”, which was an instant hit in France, Europe and Latin America.

Then came his world wide success with Santa Esmeralda and “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood”.  Santa Esmeralda's unique fusion of disco beats, horns, strings and Spanish guitars covering classic hits and new material was an instant sensation.

Before “Saturday Night Fever”, the Bee Gees and Michael Jackson's “Thriller”, Leroy Gomez and Santa Esmeralda achieved record album sales with 15 million LPs sold within just a few months. To date more than 25 million copies of this album have sold worldwide.

Santa Esmeralda's “Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood” is the 1 Disco hit in the world, with 48 Gold albums and 42 Platinum albums. Twice elected best live show in Europe by the Federation of European Press, and awarded the “Mask of Success”. Santa Esmeralda has also been the winner of 6 Cash Box and Billboard awards in the United States. Leroy Gomez is the first foreign artist ever to be presented with the “Gondola D'Oro” at the Venice Music Festival.

Leroy Gomez is also a songwriter, with the hit song, “You're My Everything” in his list of credits.  Over the years, Leroy has been touring and releasing albums under the banner of Santa Esmeralda.  The very latest is the album "Lay Down My Love" released in 2002, which contains fresh new material from Santa Esmeralda.  In 2004, Leroy released another album titled "Santa Esmeralda - The Greatest Hits", which features new recordings of the original hits like Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood, House of the Rising Sun, You're My Everything and many more.  This album also features some amazing new material as well.

“Santa Esmeralda” & Leroy Gomez are a great disco sound to which the whole planet has danced.  We thank you for finding us here on MySpace and hope you will continue to enjoy the sounds of Santa Esmeralda.