Rosita Quiroga
Songwriter, lyricist and composer
(January 16, 1896 - October 16, 1984)
She was the first female singer, direct heir of the primitive payadores. Hers is a unique case in the history of women in tango. None expressed herself as she did, she sang with the same cadence and the same way she spoke, she was the feminine prototype -unrepeatable- of the arrabalero.
He interpreted naturally, as he pleased, and played the guitar by tones, just as Juan de Dios Filiberto, his neighbor in the neighborhood of La Boca, had taught him.
She spoke in a lunfardo and vulgar way, with a canyengue rhythm, just as she would have heard it from the men of her house, port workers and carriage drivers. She did it with a lisp and her voice was not powerful but it generated an intimate atmosphere as if she was singing for herself. This style accompanied her until her death, even though she had already overcome poverty and had a very well-to-do economic position.
The journalist Jorge Göttling called her "La Piaf del arrabal porteño".
It appeared at the right time and was different from all the others.
Success came to her quickly, she was a beloved daughter of the Victor company to which she remained faithful throughout her career. She began to record in 1923, the first recording was a estilo entitled "Siempre criolla". Her first tango was "La tipa", written by guitarist Enrique Maciel and lyrics by Enrique Maroni.
It was she and, of course, the Victor label, who inaugurated in Argentina the era of electric recordings. The event took place on March 1, 1926, that day she made four electric recordings, but by number of matrix the first and therefore emblematic in the recording history of our country was "La musa mistonga", by Antonio Polito and Celedonio Flores.
He continued until February 10, 1931, when he also recorded four numbers. Practically then he put an end to his career, he was 35 years old, although he continued to appear on radio, sporadically. He did not like to perform in public.
During that very successful period (1923-1931) he managed to be very influential in the decisions of the recording label, to such an extent that his efforts led the great Agustín Magaldi, by then an unknown singer, to record with the company.
For many years the poet Celedonio Flores wrote only for her, creating 24 songs, among which stand out "Muchacho" and "Beba" (with music by Edgardo Donato), "Audacia" (Hugo La Rocca), "Carta brava" (with music by herself), "La musa mistonga" (Antonio Polito) and "Contundencia" (Mario Micchelini).
She returned to record in March 1952 and recorded four numbers and her farewell took place on September 14, 1984 (32 days before her death), urged by her friend and personal physician Dr. Luis Alposta, accompanied by guitarist Aníbal Arias and his group, recording "Campaneando mi pasado", with lyrics by Alposta and music by him.
In 1970 he traveled to Osaka, Japan, at the invitation of the members of a tango club that bears his name.
She was almost always accompanied by guitarists, but in her beginnings she also sang with the orchestras of Carlos Vicente Geroni Flores, Antonio Scatasso, Eduardo Pereyra, Manuel Buzón and others, all of them belonging to the Victor label.
Rosita Quiroga is the most genuine representative of tango arrabalero, today a legend of the most stale porteño lineage, for many the greatest, and who is revered by all of us who love this great paradigm called tango.
SOURCE: Todo Tango