He has sung in front of over 10,000 people in South America stadiums; a fan video of a song recorded by him 28 years ago has over a million views and he is often invited to weddings to sing it.
is one of the most beloved voice artists in the anime music world thanks to the opening of Dragon Ball Z , one of the most popular series of the genre.
“I received MXN $600 for recording it in 1992 and I did it in half an hour,” as remembers this 66-year-old man who studied in Mexico’s National Music School.
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In the last 20 years, he has been a guest on comic conventions where he gives autographs and on TV shows where he sings the hit that is no longer than 2 minutes.
“Some people stand in front of me and ask me to hug them since the song is a memory of their childhood .”
But he must not be mistaken for an improviser or a one-hit-wonder .
He is the voice behind opening songs of other anime series such as Captain Tsubasa (known as Supercampeons in Mexico), the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles , and Pokémon .
His vocal cords were put to work in Winnie Pooh , in movies like Shrek , and TV commercials.
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Silva Elizondo began his career in the 1970s in Operación Convivencia and then became the soloist of a popular Mexican TV show called Siempre en Domingo (Always on Sunday).
"Since it was a very prestigious orchestra , it was visited by the excellent musicians accompanying foreign singers visiting Mexico, so I learned a lot,” he says.
Although he was originally an accountant, Mary Poppins was his ticket for major league cinema when Francisco Colmenero (the Latin American voice for Papa Smurf, was looking for someone who knew about music.
He took his chance. Silva was even a music director in the main voice company for Disney projects and he was also one of those affected by the strike caused by the change of Spanish-speaking voices in The Simpson .
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“We supported them, they won, and I got fired,” he says with a smile .
Success at conventions took him by surprise. Suddenly, fans began asking who was the singer of the Dragon Ball Z opening and it was when he became a guest of such events.
“They told me to only sing Digimon , Supercampeones , and Dragon Ball ,” he says laughing.
“When we heard there were long versions [of the songs], in addition to those that appeared on TV , I began to write the adaptations ; the most important was to see what happened in the series for there are people who get offended if the content is not related,” he asserts.
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