No artist," he said, "is only an artist because he sings well. Singing is part of the culture, of the readings, of so many people to whom I owe everything I have, sculptors, painters, artists who have been leading me on this path through which I feel this way of singing". This is how Mercedes Sosa, who died at the age of 74 on October 4, 2009 due to a kidney dysfunction, assumed her job as a singer.
Haydée Mercedes Sosa (her family called her Marta) was born into a humble family, marked by poverty. She never forgot that condition in her singing. "Zambita para que canten/ los humildes de mi pagos/ Si hay que esperar la esperanza/ mas vale esperar cantando", was one of her first hymns, with the calligraphy of Armando Tejada Gómez and Oscar Matus.
She was born on July 9, Independence Day, as one who begins to trace the symmetries of a narrative that, she knows, will be all-encompassing.
Her first adventure in the industry is well known: at the age of 14 she entered (and won) a contest in LV 12 with the pseudonym of Gladys Osorio. She could not be stopped.
As a descendant of Calchaquíes, daughter of a sugar industry worker and a washerwoman, she understood that there was a deep voice that did not stop at the passing glitter. She always knew what to sing, but that intuitive impulse found form, reflection, systematization and militancy through what became known as the Manifiesto del Nuevo Cancionero (Manifesto of the New Songbook), which came from the hand of Oscar Matus, the father of who was to be her only son (Fabián).
In 1962 he released his first album, "La voz de la zafra", which foreshadowed the aesthetic movement that would be announced the following year. The context was the impressive commercial explosion of folklore in that decade, which aimed to make the song a commodity.
In the midst of that "boom", Mercedes, together with Tejada Gómez, Matus, Tito Francia and Juan Carlos Sedero, among others, questioned the contours of what had then been established as tradition and, in addition, they proposed an integrating ambition of regional music and a distance from any passistic ambition.
Their irruption in Cosquín, against the mandate of the organization, and the album "Canciones con fundamento", both in 1965, consolidated their affirmation of the social song. It deepened an embracing path that rescued the compositional legacy of Atahualpa Yupanqui and that progressively opened towards other fundamental voices of America.
The sequence is difficult to summarize: she toured Europe, recorded "Mujeres Argentinas", "Cantata Sudamericana", "Homenaje a Violeta Parra", "Traigo un pueblo en mi voz", "Mercedes Sosa interpreta a Yupanqui"... The transcendence also meant resistance. The Triple A included her in their black lists and in 1975 a bomb threat prevented her from singing in Tucumán.
A series of attacks pushed her into exile in February 1979. Formally she could enter and leave the country. But not to sing.
Exile crossed her life and left a sequel that eroded her health. Her deployment in Europe, however, led her to memorable concerts and an exponential leap in her public recognition.
"It was a big mistake to take me out because they sent an artist who was famous in Europe out into the world to make a press against them, when I should have stayed", he reflected years later.
She returned to an Argentine stage on February 18, 1982, a couple of months before the dictatorship embarked on the Malvinas crusade. As he always did, he got in touch with his contemporaries: first he met León Gieco, then he invited Charly García to a historic concert at Ferro. Years later he met Fito Páez. With all of them he left a musical mark.
After a month of convalescence, Mercedes Sosa died in the early hours of Sunday, October 4. The family at that time agreed to say goodbye to her at the National Congress where two hours after announcing the place, there was already a crowd, which remained until the next day. Her last studio album had been "Cantora", 1 and 2, an album of duets with different partners expressing the admiration of her peers.
"An artist should be free to sing what he wants, how he wants and where he wants", Mercedes affirmed. She chose to sing to her territory and her time. To her homeland, to democracy, to freedom and to the humble.
SOURCE: Télam