(b San Miguel de Tucumán, 9 July 1935). Argentine singer. In the 1960s she moved to the province of Mendoza and, with her husband Oscar Matus, started the Nuevo Cancionero, a folkloric musical movement whose objective was to be the voice of poor Argentines. In 1965 she was invited to participate in the most important folkloric event in Argentina, the Festival de Cosquín, rapidly becoming a very popular artist recording with some of the most significant musicians of her time. She was the main protagonist of two of the most ambitious folkloric projects of the 1960s and 70s, Mujeres Argentinas and Cantata Sudamericana. During this period her career became international and she performed on the most important stages of the world, receiving innumerable international awards. In 1978 she was forced by the Argentine military dictatorship of the time to abandon her country. On her return in 1982, her career shifted to another plane, as she expanded her folkloric repertory to sing ‘rock nacional’, the music developed by young musicians during the dictatorship as a way of resisting oppression. Mercedes Sosa not only sang rock compositions but participated in innumerable joint endeavours with the most important rock musicians of the time, bridging different musics and different audiences. She continues a hugely successful and popular international career.
La Negra, Tropical Music 68931 (1987)
En vivo en Europa, (1990)
Sino, Polygram 514 228-2 (1992)
Gestos de amor, Mercury 314 526 354-2 (1994)
PABLO VILA