Oye Santana - Hector Gomez

Where are you going to find a vocalist to cover everything from the US rock vocals on Abraxas, via the pure Latin-American of Festival to the Spanish Harlem tinged material on Supernatural? And convince not only with a staggering voice but with accurate pronunciation. The answer – but we still reckon we struck lucky – is Madrid, which is where Hector Gomez comes from.

The most amazing thing about Hector is not that he – a Spaniard from Madrid, who speaks perfect English and sings great rock and roll – happened to be singing at an open mic in Buckinghamshire at the same time as Milan Webb and Gez Kahan were looking for a vocalist for Oye Santana. It’s that he’d only discovered his voice by chance. He’d never even considered a career in music until getting up at a family gathering and wowing his astonished relatives.

Listen to him, and you’ll wonder – as we did the first time we heard him sing – how a voice like that could have remained a secret for so long.