‘Carpe Mañana’ creator Adelo dies
Whether behind the handlebars of his super-trike, storming the courthouse style in a three-piece suit, or on the stage with his band, George Edwin Adelo Jr. cut an impressive figure.
Funeral arrangements are pending for George Edwin Adelo Jr., renowned musician, lawyer, businessman, father, friend and proud Pecoseño who died Monday evening from complications related to an infection. He was 64.
Adelo’s death also came less than a month after James Varela, drummer in Adelo’s band White Buffalo, died on stage during a gig, causing Facebook friends to remark that Adelo has simply changed venues, heading up to heaven to jam in good company as he had done all his life.
Adelo was big and tall, with long hair and a bushy black beard.
Whether behind the handlebars of his 17-foot-long supertrike wearing a T-shirt bearing his trademarked phrase “Carpe Mañana,” storming the courthouse country-lawyer style in a three-piece suit, or on the stage flamboyant in fur with a ring on every finger, he cut an impressive figure.
But the hundreds of people who considered him a friend knew that behind that imposing facade beat a tender and generous heart.
“It was funny because he looked so big and hairy and like a biker, but he was a big softie,” Adelo’s son, George Adelo III, said Tuesday. “He was from Pecos, so you wouldn’t really want to get on his bad side either. But he definitely cared for people and wanted to help people any way he could.”
Adelo was born on April 23, 1953, in Santa Fe to George F. and Consuelo Adelo of Pecos.
“George was the eldest in our family and he was a bright young man and he excelled scholastically,” Adelo’s sister, Jeanne Adelo, said in a phone interview Tuesday.
He began helping out in the family business, Adelo’s Town and Country Store, at an early age.
When Adelo was about 12 years old, his sister said, he “got it in his head that he wanted a guitar.” And he saved his money to buy a six-string, which he taught himself to play, sparking a lifelong love of music.
Adelo attended St. Michael’s High School during the last few years that the school boarded students, his sister said, and it was then that he met guitarist Junior Brown, who would later invite Adelo to play with him on tour.
Adelo graduated from high school in 1971 and went on to study philosophy and then law at the University of Notre Dame, earning his undergraduate degree in 1975 and his law degree in 1978.
In 1976, while on a break from school, he met and married Marie Adelo. By the time he graduated from law school, he had already fathered one of his three children.
Adelo practiced law with a few different firms before he eventually opened his own office. After the New Mexico state prison riots in 1980, his sister said, Adelo represented one of the inmates and was the first attorney to get his client acquitted.
Longtime friend and musical collaborator Gwen Spatzier said Adelo in later years devoted much of his law practice to entertainment law, producing, promoting and managing area musicians.
Gerard Martinez, a local musician and childhood friend, said Adelo helped draw up basic performance contracts for Martinez’s band.
All the while, Adelo continued to manage the family store in Pecos as well as promote and play music throughout the region, first with his namesake group the Georgie Angel Blues Band and later with his rock ’n’ roll band, White Buffalo. Spatzier said the band was originally called Tequila Mockingbird, but Adelo changed it after learning a male stripper also used that moniker.
In 2007, Adelo played the role of the “Mexican in Bathtub” in the movie No Country for Old Men, which was filmed in New Mexico.
Adelo was one of the original members of the New Mexico Music Commission, which was created in 2005 to promote and preserve the musical traditions of New Mexico.
The commission’s website described him as someone who had a “lifelong love affair with New Mexico and her music,” adding that “his experience as a musician and entertainment lawyer gave him a unique perspective to be of service to the Commission.”
“It’s a huge loss for New Mexico and music in our state,” New Mexico Arts Executive Director Loie Fecteau said.
Brian Hargrove, bassist for the hip-hop group Public Enemy, said Adelo was one reason he stayed in Santa Fe after he came to the area more than a decade ago.
“He was a straight shooter and one of the people who gave me a sense of belonging when I moved here from New York City,” Hargrove said Tuesday.
In addition to his wife and his son George Adelo III, he is survived by his children, Amanda Adelo and Benjamin Adelo, and a 5-year-old-granddaughter, as wll as his three siblings and extended family throughout Santa Fe and Pecos.
Spatzier said she and others are planning a memorial jam in honor of Adelo, which will likely take place in November.
In addition to writing songs, Adelo, was also known to write poems, often with a spiritual bent, which he published on Facebook. Here is one he posted in 2012: I’m only a man Who Sang by the river once Songs I hope were prayers.