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// Mercedes Sosa
Mercedes Sosa 1935-2009
The Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa, an icon of popular Latin American song, has died on 4 October 2009 aged 74 in a Buenos Aires clinic following a long struggle with liver disease. Singing impassioned protest songs in her rich contralto voice made her an international ambassador for Latin American traditional music and she embodied the hopes of a continent in the grip of military dictatorships during the 70s and 80s.
Born in 1935 in San Miguel de Tucumán, in the north of Argentina, Haydée Mercedes Sosa came from a family of modest means. She began her career as a teacher of traditional dance and soon started to sing the zambas, chacareras, milongas and tonadas which would remain central to her repertoire throughout her life. With her husband, the musician Manuel Oscar Matus, Sosa went to live in the bohemian town of Mendoza and in 1964 wrote the Nuevo Cancionero Manifesto, proposing the revival and renovation of traditional song, and to “integrate the songs into people’s lives, to express their dreams, their joys, their struggles and their hopes”.
Her performance the following year at the Cosquin traditional music festival led to the release of the album Canciones Con Fundamento (1965), the second album in a discography which would total over 40 records. Her work crossed genres, generations and borders, immortalising the songs of some of the greatest political lyricists of Latin America, such as the Chileans Violeta Parra (‘Gracias a la vida’) and Julio Numhauser (‘Todo cambia’), the Cuban Silvio Rodríguez (‘La Maza’) and her compatriots Ariel Ramírez (‘Alfonsina y el mar’), Atahualpa Yupanqui (‘Duerme Negrito’) and León Gieco (‘Sólo le pido a Dios’).
A militant communist, heading up many demonstrations and union struggles, Mercedes Sosa was arrested by the military junta in the middle of a concert in Mar del Plata in 1979. Quickly released, she was forced into exile in Europe, living in Paris and then Madrid, until she returned to democratic Argentina in 1982. Celebrated on her return as a symbol of the resistance, she went on to record collaborations with Argentinian rock stars such as Charly García and Fito Páez. Her status as a major international artist was confirmed by concerts at prestigious venues such as the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, Carnegie Hall in New York and the Olympia in Paris. Despite health problems which slowed her career over the last decade, in 2008 she released the double album Cantora, a collection of her greatest hits recorded as duets with Latin stars young and old - Joan Manuel Serrat, Joaquín Sabina, Caetano Veloso, Shakira, Jorge Drexler and Calle 13.
The most popular Argentinian singer since Gardel, Mercedes Sosa was modest about her fame throughout her career, never relinquishing her legendary red poncho, a symbol for the open veins of Latin America which her voice had helped to heal.
Mercedes Sosa – Gracias A La Vida
Yannis Ruel
// ALSO
- Corazón libre
- Pesebre
- Live Wire
- Joe Bataan & James Pants live at Cargo 11 June plus dates in Leeds and Birmingham
- Quantic and his Combo Barbaro album launch tour starts Friday 5 June at the ICA
- Movimientos Latin America Network
- Andrés 'El Jíbaro' Jiménez, Andrés 'El Jíbaro' Jiménez - Puerto Rico's folk music icon
- The Cuban diaspora, Buena Vista Exile Club
- Kenyan Connections, Extra Golden
// DISCOGRAPHY
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Corazón libre (Album)
Oro (Album)
Vengo a ofrecer mi corazon (Album)
Misa criolla (Album)
Acustico (Album)
Mujeres Argentinas (Album)// LINKS
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