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Mercedes Sosa: A lifelong source of inspiration
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Mercedes Sosa
I’m not particularly known for having a good memory.
Aside from some colorful college adventures, a few life-changing travels to far-flung places and several unforgettable family moments, I’m thrilled if I can remember where I parked my car at a shopping mall.
But some events are incontrovertible, unforgettable. I remember the first time I heard a Mercedes Sosa song — and that was over 30 years ago.
Sosa, the legendary Argentine folk singer of “La Nueva Canción” or New Song movement who emerged as a profound voice of consciousness across Latin America and Europe for protest and folkloric music that spoke to the masses, died Saturday night at a medical clinic in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was 74. She is survived by Fabián Matus, her only child.
“La negra,” as she was affectionately known to her worldwide cult following in honor to her indigenous descent, passed away after being hospitalized for more than 12 days for lung, kidney and liver ailments.
With a recording career that spanned over five decades, the award-winning artist — a pariah among right-wingers and a hero among leftists — was known for her alto voice, lyrical social commentary and impassioned music, as well as for often decrying iron-fisted dictatorships in the 1970s through her work.
Born in Argentina’s northwestern province of Tucumán, Sosa grew up in poverty, the daughter of blue-collar workers. Her ancestry was Quechua, but she also had a French grandfather.
Sosa’s artistry touched millions around the globe, including a young little boy hailing from Puerto Rico of Ukrainian-Jewish and Uruguayan ancestry. The following is the story of how this writer connected with Sosa.
As an 8-year-old boy, I was playing in my parents’ apartment in San Juan when I first heard the opening pounding drumbeats of “Juana Azurduy. “ To be honest, I don’t recall neither what I felt at the time nor what exactly drew me to it, but one thing is certain: Before that point in time in the late ‘70s there was a pre-Mercedes Sosa life I knew, and after that, Mercedes Sosa formed part of my life.
Sosa was there when I was married 15 years ago as a local folk music group played her classics during the reception; she was there through my four years of college as I crammed for the final exams each semester; she was there when my father died of liver cancer in Uruguay in 1994 as I desperately tried to heal my sorrow and sense of loss; she was there when my oldest son was born six years ago as I sang him the lullaby ‘Duerme negrito” a zillion times. She has been a best friend and a great companion.
The quality of the sound of “Juana Azurduy” that I first heard was poor, though. It came from an old radio/cassette boombox that my father, a philosophy professor, owned and guarded closely next to his bed as if it were the first edition of Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” But through those old and scratchy-sounding speakers, Sosa’s majestic voice came through with the clarity on par with a modern-day pair of speakers.
My dad, born in Uruguay to an Argentine father of Ukrainian-Jewish descent, had simple music taste — basically, spin any album from one of the major figures of the bossa nova/Tropicalia movement, from Milton Nascimento and Maria Bethania to Antonio Carlos Jobim. A dedicated reader and professor at the University of Puerto Rico for over 30 years, he was in his element surrounded by the sounds of these masters.
On the other hand, my mother — an English teacher, born and raised in Puerto Rico, who along with my father, lived in France and Uruguay before coming back to raise me and my three sisters — has a more diverse musical taste, ranging from France’s Jules Dasin to tango’s iconic figure Carlos Gardel to our very own bomba master Modesto Cepeda. That fateful day when I was enchanted by “La negra” she had put on Sosa’s “Juana Azurduy.”
Of course, as a child I was oblivious to the fact that “The Voice of Latin America” was paying homage to the Bolivian revolutionary, Juana Azurduy, who was widely known during the South American Wars of Independence of the early 19th century.
While “Juana Azurduy” falls within Sosa’s group of obscure songs, for some reason it carved out its own little space in my picky, filtered memory, and I can count the times I’ve actually listened to it since that day.
But then, as the years went by and I matured and became more familiar with her music, I realized that I was drawn to Sosa’s body of work not only because of her thunderous voice and alluring Andean-influenced folk music but also because of her uncompromised plight for the poor, her status as a symbol for human rights and social justice across Latin America — her In 1976s, Sosa was forced into exile in Europe (first in Spain and then France) because she railed and thundered against government repressions in Latin America. Despite the dangers of being outspoken, she never backed down, lending her voice to the downtrodden, earning her the enduring title, “The voice of the voiceless.”
Sosa returned to Argentina in 1982, as her country’s military regime started to weaken.
In a way, Sosa was to me like one more family member, as I’m sure she was to many. More than a singer — in a twisted, surrealistic world of mine — she became like an imaginary, globetrotting grandmother to me. Don’t ask me why, but she seemed to have that inherent power over her faithful listeners and admirers.
Sosa was best known for her anthemic “Gracias a la vida,” a beautiful and moving Violeta Parra song that celebrates love and life in which Sosa shows off her astounding vocal prowess.
This is just one song of many that defined her charismatic persona and politically charged music style.
Listen to Ariel Ramírez and Félix Luna’s “Alfonsina y el mar,” the gut-wrenching love poem that Sosa popularized in the early days of her career in homage to Argentinean poet Alfonsina Storni; Peteco Carabajal’s “Cómo pájaros en el aire” is an ode to a mother’s unconditional love (and one of my favorites); León Gieco’s “Sólo le pido a Dios” is an anthem steeped in hope and the emotive The courageous “Galopa Murrieta,” “Todo cambia,” “Sueño con serpientes” and Chico Buarque’s “O, que sera?” are other standouts, as is “Venas abiertas,” which fervently denounces anti-imperialist ideals and interventionist policies just like the book by noted Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, “Las Venas Abiertas de América Latina” (The Open Veins of Latin America).
All these songs truly reflect who was Mercedes Sosa — the woman, not the mainstream recording artist you might have seen performing along with Shakira this year during a song they recorded for Sosa’s newest album.
Meanwhile, Sosa’s international commercial success could be compared to that of the likes of Joan Manuel Serrat, whose adaptation of Antonio Machado’s introspective poem “Cantares” brought him instant acclaim worldwide or to Pablo Milanés’ signature tune “Yolanda” or Silvio Rodríguez’s socially-infused ‘Ojalá,” which have drawn the artists much fame and accolades since their releases more than 30 years ago.
But truth be told, Sosa’s international appeal was unsurpassed by any of these artists, and most others of her generation.
Quite simply, there’s no other female Latin American singer today who could fill the void left by the passing of Mercedes Sosa.
That said, Sosa’s commercial success accompanied her throughout her 50-year-plus musical journey.
Sosa won Latin Grammys for Best Folk Album for “Misa criolla” in 2000, ‘Acústico” in 2003 and “Corazón libre” in 2006.
Sosa also recorded and performed with countless of other artists from the New Song movement, including Chile’s Victor Jara, Violeta Parra, Argentina’s Victor Heredia and Uruguay’s Alfredo Zitarrosa.
As her international reach broadened, Sosa also seized the opportunity to team up with renowned non-Latin artists such as Nana Mouskouri, Joan Báez, Sting, Pavarotti and Andrea Bocelli.
Throughout her career, Sosa recorded over 70 albums, including her newest double CD titled “Cantora I” and “Cantora II,” a collection of folk tracks performed with contemporary Latin music stars such as Shakira, Fito Páez, Julieta Venegas, Joaquín Sabina and Lila Downs.
Before her passing, Sosa also teamed up with the Puerto Rican alt-urban duo Calle 13 to record “Para un niño en la calle.”
Clarín, Argentina’s leading daily, stated the following in an online tribute to Sosa:
“Traditional and modern, rural and worldly, rough and sophisticated, she was nothing more and nothing less than the most important Argentine singer in history.”
I saw Sosa perform live three times in my life: One along with the acclaimed Puerto Rican singer Lucecita Benítez in a concert in Puerto Rico at the Luis A. Ferré Performing Arts Center in Santurce in the early 1990s; a few years later with my wife I saw her at the same venue and, finally, my wife and I and some friends saw her again at the same Santurce performing arts center nearly two years ago.
Although she was battling several health ailments at the end of her life, she was truly amazing onstage. Stunning. Talk about stage presence and remarkable voices.
Clad in her trademark peasant clothing, and armed with a big, traditional Argentinean drum that she beat lightly and hard depending on a song’s tempo, she mesmerized concertgoers with her favorite hits — a truly unforgettable experience.
Despite being restricted to a wheelchair on her last show on the island, Sosa’s voice shone, and she did her best to connect with the audience — she even stood up for a few seconds to dance to the irresistible swinging rhythm of the folk classic “Pollerita.”
That was the last time I saw her alive. But her albums hold a special place in my music collection and rarely does a month goes by without Sosa’s soundtrack in my home.
While writing this, my six-year-old son, Noah, who, to my disbelief, is more into Madonna, The Doors and Led Zeppelin than into seemingly “boring” Nueva Trova, asked me who was Mercedes Sosa. My memory will never fail me when it comes to her.
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