Edmundo Rivero
Edmundo Leonel Rivero was born on June 8, 1911. Singer, guitarist, tango composer, disseminator of lunfardo, who imposed a style with his particular voice register.
Edmundo Rivero was born in Valentín Alsina, in the south of Greater Buenos Aires, and grew up in the neighborhood of Saavedra. From an early age he was attracted to the guitar and, at the age of 18, he was already a well-known guitarist in the area. He began to frequent bodegones and bars until he studied singing and classical guitar at the National Conservatory of Music. In the meantime, he accompanied great singers, such as the well-remembered Nelly Omar, Agustín Magaldi, Francisco Amor, among others.
In a duo with his sister Eva and his brother Anibal, he performed small concerts for Radio Cultura and for the Alvear Palace Hotel, in which they played Spanish music and classical themes.
Tango in his particular voice
His career as a tango singer began with José de Caro. Later he joined the orchestras of Julio de Caro, Emilio Orlando and Humberto Canaro. It was in the groups of Horacio Salgán and Aníbal Troilo where he imposed his bass register and his aporteño style.
Salgán's music and orchestrations were revolutionary for the time, and Edmundo Rivero's bass voice was unheard of at a time when all tango singers were tenor singers. The public finally chose Rivero, in spite of the refusal of the impresarios. In 1947, Aníbal Troilo suggested him to join his orchestra replacing Alberto Marino, where he remained until 1950, performing unforgettable songs such as "Sur" and "El último organito".
His voice was imposed by keeping the low tone and deepening his relationship with lunfardo and tango pícaro.
In 1953 he began to take off: tours of the interior of the country and important presentations on radio and television. In 1959 he performed in Madrid for seven months and, in 1965, he was part of an artistic embassy that toured the United States for two years and also visited all the important cities of Latin America. In January of the same year he travels to Japan.
His unforgettable rendition of "Cafetín de Buenos Aires" became a landmark. The emblematic program Polémica en el bar used Rivero's recording as a curtain and contributed to its massive diffusion.
Lunfardo
Edmundo Rivero became interested in lunfardo in his adolescence, when his uncle taught him the first words. Later, in a neighborhood aguantadero, he learned the more cryptic lunfardo.
"Lunfardo" should not be confused with "reo". The "reo" is the language of the man of the neighborhood, of the honored "orillero", with which he names the things of his trade, his amusements. Lunfardo is the slang of the lancero, the escruchante, the punguista, an underlying language that is built on metaphors, by translations full of imagination" (Edmundo Rivero).
In 1965 a record called El Tango was recorded with music by Piazzolla, lyrics by Borges, the voice of Edmundo Rivero interpreting the poems Jacinto Chiclana, El títere, A Don Nicanor Paredes and Alguien le dice al tango. The final result of the LP was not to Borges' total liking, annoying Piazzolla. Borges did not like Rivero's interpretation and Piazzolla's arrangements because they were outside the tango universe imagined by the writer. Piazzolla understood the essence of Borges' lyrics but when it came to agreeing on the interpretation, he brought into play his expressive tools of nuevo tango.
In Rivero's voice, Borges' texts became contemporary and Piazzolla's modern tango, traditional. With the passage of time and its difficulty to obtain it, El Tango became a cult album.
On May 8, 1969 he opened his famous tanguería "El Viejo Almacén", on Independencia and Balcarce, where he did not want to serve food or drinks because he thought that "when people drink or eat they do not have the necessary privacy to listen to the interpreters".
In the years that followed until before his death, he continued with his tours, became a member of the Academia del Lunfardo and conducted a program on Radio Nacional called "Hablando del lunfardo", until December 24, 1885, when he suffered a cardiomyopathy that left him hospitalized for a month. He died on January 18, 1986.
Today, 110 years after his birth, we share a tango of his authorship.
To Buenos Aires
In your gringo shuffle, my city,
you're losing your brambles and your shine
your badge is at the taqueria
and moth-eaten in orsay your conventillo.
Sos cadenera flower without berretines
that you are a curator of the cuores with your rank;
But the choma that oils your skates
it's a male, it's called tango.
My broom cupboards will always be padlocked
and in my left-handed pacifier with no fake
although they gave you marked game
to me you are worth more than a pot.
I will continue to scruchando in your lunfardo
no monsignor, no giraffe, no flag
my voice will be the bard
who sings you the most canera rhyme.
When the end comes, if the one in white
takes me to the priest rather than to the hole,
that the funeral be in lunfa, thus the one-armed.
I did not learn Latin, pure Creole.
and so you will be happy, matina and will be,
happier than a saint in a lion's den.
Source: El Historiador/ Stratta, I and García Brunelli, O in "Borges y Piazzolla: un desencuentro por milonga".