Tito Fernández

Humberto Waldemar Asdrúbal Baeza Fernández (9 December 1942 – 11 February 2023), also known as Tito Fernández, El Temucano, was a Chilean singer-songwriter and folklorist. He recorded and released more than 40 albums from the 1970s to the present. Fernández was born in Temuco but moved to Santiago as a teenager. In his 20s, he began singing in pubs and bars in the north of Chile, Peru, and Bolivia. He was imprisoned during the battle between the Bolivian army and Che Guevara's guerrillas. Fernández returned to Chile in 1971. He moved to Santiago where he recorded his music and shared the stage several times with Víctor Jara. He was also active with the Juventudes Comunistas de Chile. However, unlike other singers of the Nueva Canción Chilena, Fernández also had followers within the military and right-wing. After the military coup in 1973, he was assigned to deliver Victor Jara's wedding ring to his widow. Fernández was himself detained by the military after the coup and imprisoned for a short time at the Escuela de Aviación, where he had studied in his youth. He was given the work of being a waiter serving military personnel at the school. He was released after a short time and remained in Chile rather than living in exile. However, he was not permitted to perform live, and his more left-wing albums were censored. Over the years, he became close to members of the Central Nacional de Informaciones (CNI). This led to disagreements with artists of the Nueva Canción Chilena who no longer considered him to be part of their musical movement. Fernández claimed to have had an encounter with UFOs on a highway while traveling to Antofagasta in 1974. In 1988, he founded the Centro Integral de Estudios Metafísicos (CIEM). In 2018, a member of CIEM accused Fernández of raping her. He was charged with rape in July 2020.