Mercedes Sosa – More Than A Song

Maybe you wonder why I’m making the effort to describe the political situation in South America. Through Mercedes, I developed an affection for South America and realized that the continent is much overlooked in the media outside the Spanish-speaking world. As Mercedes Sosa’s friend, the Cuban singer Pablo Milanés once said, it is not possible to tell the story of Latin America without mentioning Mercedes Sosa. I believe the opposite is true as well. It is not possible to tell about Mercedes Sosa without telling about this troubled but vibrant continent in which Mercedes invested her entire life. I refer to South America as the continent in the western hemisphere consisting of the countries and islands south of Panama. I use Latin America as a cultural entity of Spanish and Portuguese speaking nations in both Americas.

On my YouTube Channel, Mercedes Sosa – The Voice of Hope, you will find a playlist with many of the songs and episodes that I describe in the book. As you come across these songs, I encourage you to visit the channel so that you may fully appreciate what is being described.

I am excited that after almost ten years of pondering, listening, watching, researching, and writing, I can finally introduce you to this amazing woman who influenced an entire continent by using her unique talent and outstanding personality. and who turned my life around even after her death.

If you want to know more about my personal journey with Mercedes Sosa, it is included in Mercedes Sosa – The Voice of Hope, where I show you how I recovered from emotional wounds by relating to Mercedes Sosa as a mother. I believe my story as well as the scientific insights that back up my experience can be useful to anyone who finds him or herself stuck in limiting, crippling, or tormenting experiences from the past. This edition is published to mark the 10

anniversary of Mercedes Sosa’s death and contains only the biographical part of the original book.

I have written this book out of deep respect for Mercedes Sosa and everything she stands for. This is my love song to Mercedes Sosa. In her voice, life becomes a song with a scent of hope as sweet and beautiful as the flower that grows in the paths of those who looks forward. Her voice represents a woman who in turn represents dreams, ideals and love that go far beyond the border of music. Mercedes Sosa was more than song. She was the voice of hope to many. May this book extend her voice and the hope she kindled.

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross (http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1506.Elisabeth_K_bler_Ross)

Denmark, October 4, 2009

“The Argentine singer and folk heroine Mercedes Sosa has died from multiple organ failure at a hospital in Buenos Aires after being admitted three weeks ago. Her career spanned over six decades and she recorded more than forty albums, performing all over the world. Sosa was the underground reference point for many Argentines during the time of dictatorship, and through her songs she gave life to the protest movement among the working class, a movement which led to the collapse of the military junta in 1983. Mercedes Sosa became famous in Europe when she was living in exile in Spain and France from 1979 to 1982. She lived to seventy-four years old.”

IT’S A SUNDAY evening and I settle to watch the news with my husband. Along with a report of Mercedes Sosa’s death, a short film clip of a beautiful lady with long, dark hair, wearing a black dress with a red Andean poncho on top comes up on the TV screen. With extraordinary passion and a voice remarkable and soulful, she sings a song, “Gracias a la Vida” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyOJ-A5iv5I&list=PL5PuhOi-6caR5wHIxHNztgxvP8OlgdkSm&index=2) (Thanks to Life). I become captivated by her authenticity and charisma, and it takes only but a short while to realize I am watching a genuine and sincere woman so pure and extraordinary that I begin to wonder why I haven’t heard of her before now. As if nothing else matters, I get up to use the internet and find out more about this lady. An enormous number of YouTube links come up. I begin to watch and listen.

In the first clip, Mercedes sings “Zamba por vos” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3tWo10z-W4&list=PL5PuhOi-6caR5wHIxHNztgxvP8OlgdkSm&index=2) (Zamba for You) ever so gloriously with the Argentine folklore quartet, Los Chalchaleros. Radiant and graceful as a gentle embrace Mercedes arrives onstage with a consolatory smile on her lips and a sparkle of vitality in her eyes. To unending applause she proceeds to greet the members of the group, drawing them into warm embraces. Then she turns to the crowd and with a calm demeanor, starts singing in her contralto voice—deep, pleasant, and soft.

The second clip I watch is “Todo cambia” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8VqIFSrFUU&index=3&list=PL5PuhOi-6caR5wHIxHNztgxvP8OlgdkSm) (Everything Changes), recorded at the Festival de Viña in Chile, 1993. Dressed in black from top to toe, she appears mystical and monumental, sounding just as powerful and convincing as she looks. I sense a tremendous energy emanating from her as she conquers the stage with her Latin American dancing steps and her scarf swinging above her head. I see a dynamic and forthright person who is unafraid of expressing her true self. The sincere and tender yet firm look in her eyes captivates me, and I feel as though she is looking directly into my soul through the computer screen. There is something about her, a “mystical presence,” which reaches to the deepest parts of my being, and my well of longing. Tears stream down my face as I realize I have encountered something that I have always hoped to find.

I instinctively know that she is a singer with a message and a mission. I want to find out what they are.

Buenos Aires, October 4, 2009

FOLLOWING THE President’s official announcement marking the start of three national days of mourning, the flags are flown at half-mast all over Argentina. Across the country concerts and shows scheduled during this period are cancelled, and condolences from heads of state—in Latin America and the rest of the world—pour in.

“La Negra” (The Black One), as she was fondly called owing to her jet black hair and her Northern Argentine, Andean ancestry, lies peacefully in her casket in the most formal room of the Congress, the “Salón de los Pasos Perdidos,” an honor reserved for only the most prominent of national icons. On Avenida Callao, the street leading to the Congress, admirers line up to pay their respects.

In the Pasos Perdidos, lavish wreaths adorn the impressive marble hall. Gigantic chandeliers and massive candles light up the dimness of the high-ceilinged room with the uncovered casket positioned right in the center. Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, accompanies Sosa’s family as they pay homage to the singer. The family, including Mercedes’ son, Fabián Matus, and her two grandchildren, Agustín and Araceli, stand closely with their arms around each other as though in a half-embrace while Cristina caresses Mercedes Sosa’s lifeless hand. Christina’s husband, the former President Néstor Kirchner, stands rather guardedly by her side with a cautious look.

Ordinary people are there too. Respectfully, a growing flock of mourners pass by (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzaQQ1lPe2U&list=PL5PuhOi-6caR5wHIxHNztgxvP8OlgdkSm&index=4) the open casket where she is seen resting in her embroidered blue dress. Her long, black hair, which at the age of seventy-four, doesn’t have a single strand of gray in it, frames her calm, high-cheekbone face. Her hands are carefully folded on her stomach around a bouquet of white roses. Singer Argentino Luna plays her songs as weeping fans sing along and take turns to leave flowers by her coffin.

October 5, 2009

FABIÁN AND Mercedes’ closest relatives follow the brown wooden casket as it is carried out to the hearse parked outside the Congress. All along Avenida Rivadavia, crowds of mourners, of all ages, gather to watch the hearse take her on her last journey, from the Congress to the crematorium. They stand united in a moment of Argentine history that dissolves social and political boundaries.

The procession of hearses drives past slowly and a number of mourners carry banners that say adorable things about her. An old revolutionary in his sixties is holding up a banner that reads, “Thank you for your life and your struggle.” A number of people can be seen clapping and waving the Argentine flag with graceful enthusiasm. The young make happy noises, chanting, “Olé Olé Olé Olé, Negra Negra,” in repeated fashion as though it were the national soccer team returning after winning a championship. At virtually every corner, groups of people bearing different instruments start to sing. Beautiful music echoes through the streets of Buenos Aires—music that has provided hope and comfort for decades, challenging tyranny and fostering democracy.

It is a day of sorrow that reaches deep into the Argentine soul. The national folk heroine, the mother of the nation, is dead. But what she gave through her life and her songs will never die. They live on.

The procession slowly leaves the Congress. The first hearses carry all the flower decorations. The last carries the casket.

Time before Exile

San Miguel, Tucumán, July 9, 1935

AT SANTILLÁN HOSPITAL, in northwest Argentina, twenty-four-year-old Ema del Carmen Girón has just given birth. It is seven o’clock in the morning. Her newborn daughter is safely asleep in her arms. The baby announced her entrance into the world with a hefty squall that could be heard all over the maternity ward. What no one knows is that one of history’s best voices has just made its first sound. Ema is grateful for this new and precious life she is holding in her arms, and, for a while, she forgets all the financial challenges that will come with raising a child. Ema has a job as a laundress, and her husband, Ernesto Quiterio Sosa, works in the sugar industry harvesting sugarcane and shoveling coal into the oven at the Tucumán Mill.

Through the half-open window, Ema can hear cannon salutes in the distance. She counts them—twenty-one. July 9 is Argentine Independence Day. Ema’s instinct is that it is not a coincidence that her daughter is born on this day. She confides in the midwife, who has just come back to the room, “This girl is going to be someone with great influence one day. Her birth is being welcomed by twenty-one salutes.”

She keeps this conviction in her heart from this moment on.

EMA AND her husband, Ernesto, usually agree on everything, but when they have to give their newborn daughter a name, they run into some trouble. Ema wants to call her Marta, while Ernesto opts for Mercedes, after his mother, and Haydeé, after a well-liked cousin. Ultimately she gets the name Haydeé Mercedes Sosa, but for the rest of her life her mother will stubbornly call her Marta.

Mercedes grows up in Tucumán, which is also called the Garden of the Republic. A semi-tropical and agricultural region with countless fields of sugarcane, flowers, and fruit trees, the smallest province in Argentina. It is in this oasis in the northwest corner of Argentina that Mercedes grows up with her older sister, Clara Rosa—also called Cocha—and her two brothers, Fernando and Orlando. The family resides in a poor, working-class area. The pink paint on the outer walls of their small, one-story house at Calle San Roque 344 is becoming black from the soot and smoke of the nearby factories, and in some places the paint is chipping off. The only light that gets into the house comes through two small windows with iron bars that face a narrow street where the children used to play, inventing their own games because they never had toys. Fortunately, they live close to the local park, which also has its ties to the date of Argentine independence, being named Parque de 9 Julio. It becomes a second home to them.

Growing up, Mercedes enjoys playing in the park with her siblings and the other children in their modest neighbourhood.

She is always cheerful and connects with others easily. But sometimes she prefers to be on her own and withdraws to her favorite tree. She likes to sit leaning against the bark while watching the insects buzzing around her. She is a robust child in many ways, but she also has a sensitive, reflective side that makes her wonder why some people are rich while others are poor. Very early in her life, she has a developed feeling for right and wrong. It is a sensibility caused directly by seeing her parents work so hard to keep hunger from their doorstep. Even doing their utmost, they often can’t afford to buy food for their children. To distract their children from their hunger, they take them to the park to play every evening at dinnertime.

To Mercedes, Saturdays are the best days because that’s when her father gets paid and the family can enjoy a meal of spaghetti with butter, the only hot meal they get all week. Often the hunger keeps her awake for hours at night.

Still, later in life, Mercedes would come to say she had a happy childhood. “I do not wish to wail like someone who has lived in hunger, poverty, and cold. I lived my childhood in a poor house, which was however warmed up by the necessary feelings. My siblings and I always had the essentials, because we never lacked love. In this respect we were millionaires. Our parents not only sacrificed their lives, but they have been wise. They never put a burden on us for their sacrifices. They gave us everything they could, without revealing to us what they had to do to achieve this.”

Mercedes never truly grows out of the mindset of poverty she grew up with, and it shapes her social consciousness and gives her sympathy for the poor, which, along with the love of her parents, shapes her ideology and provides the firm foundation on which she will continue to stand. As an adult she concludes, “Poverty has always chased us, but it never broke us down. It only helped us to be free and choose our way of thinking.”

Mercedes has a close relationship with her grandparents. Her grandfather on her mother’s side is half French, while her grandparents on her father’s side are Amerindian with Quechuan roots, descending from the Inca empire. Mercedes is not aware of her Indian origins until her grandmother is dying and, in her delirium, starts speaking Quechua, but her new discovery instills in her a love for indigenous people and their culture, an affection that stays with her throughout her life.

When Mercedes starts going to school, she quickly learns to read. She loves reading, and whenever it is time to cook at home, Ema orders Mercedes out of the kitchen and into her room where she can do so.

It is important to Ema that Mercedes gain as much knowledge as she can, and Mercedes never resists. She is curious and eager, and she absorbs the words of one book after another like a sponge. It broadens her horizons and gives her an understanding of history, culture, and people of different backgrounds from her own. Mercedes also sings and dances throughout her childhood. It is like walking and talking to her. Yet she remains shy and doesn’t like to perform for others.

Then one day, in October 1950, when she is fifteen, her school music teacher, Josefina Pesce de Médici, discovers her ability to sing. To encourage Mercedes’ talent, she asks her to lead the school choir in singing the national hymn at a school celebration. Mercedes tries to hide in the back, but Medici tells her to step up in front of all the teachers, her fellow students, and their parents, and to sing loud and clear. She is nervous, terrified, but she does so well that her teacher and some of her friends decide, without telling her, to sign her up for a contest at the local radio station. “I remember singing from the far end of my life. However, it is not the same to sing at home and for the world. There is a date for this. I was fifteen years old, and, one day, school finished two hours early. There was a competition on the town’s radio station, LV12. I showed up more to play, rather than to sing.”

Mercedes chooses to sing “Triste estoy” (I am Sad), a zamba by Margarita Palacios, under the pseudonym Gladys Osorio. She wins the contest, and the reward is a two-month contract with the radio station. This is the first stepping stone of her long career. Mercedes already knows that she wants to spend the rest of her life singing. A star has been born.

Her mother knows about the contest, but not Ernesto, her father, whom they know won’t approve. He finds out any-way, having recognized his daughter’s voice on the radio, and gets very upset. When Mercedes gets home, he slaps her in the face, which is something he has never done before. He doesn’t want his daughter to become a singer because he thinks it will move her away from the family and lead to a wild and dissolute lifestyle. He doesn’t believe there is any future in being a singer and wants his children to get an education so they can achieve more in life than he has. But to get the two months’ contract with the radio station, Mercedes, a minor, needs her parents’ signature, and Ema doesn’t want to sign behind her husband’s back. She is a clever woman who knows how to work on her husband, and, after a little persuasion, he finally gives in and signs the contract on the condition that Mercedes gets an education. To please him, she decides to become a dance teacher and study traditional Latin American dance, such as the Chacarera, Milonga, and Zamba.

The area where she grows up, with the influence of the indigenous culture of nearby Bolivia, inspires her to become a folk singer, although she could easily have made a career in opera instead and even considered it for a while. Her choice of education turns out to be an advantage for her career as an artist. But she can’t stop singing and continues to get many invitations to perform at public events. Her parents have no choice but to get used to the idea, and, little by little, they do. Soon the whole family is following her wherever she goes.

As much as Mercedes loves singing, and as often as she is doing so for audiences, it remains an immense challenge each time she stands up before them. She is still shy and, despite appearances, suffers from severe stage fright. It is a fear she knows she must overcome if she is ever to fulfill what is becoming her dream.

EMA AND Ernesto are interested in politics. They don’t belong to any party, but they support Juan Perón, and even more so his wife, Evita, whom they admire for her outward beauty and her impact. Like them, Evita comes from a poor country region; unlike them (but perhaps like their daughter), she has worked her way out of poverty as an actress. Now, with her husband in office, she is responsible for the ministry of employment as well as the ministry of health. Her focus has been reforms to help the population’s poorest, and she founds a charitable organization, Eva Peron Foundation, responsible for building houses, schools, hospitals, and homes for children. Evita is also behind the legislation that gives women the right to vote for the first time. She is a heroine in the eyes of the working class and is loved by millions of Argentines, even while society’s right wing remains vehemently opposed to her.

At seventeen, Mercedes adores Evita and sees her as a real revolutionary. It is a major sorrow for her when, on July 26, 1952, Evita dies from cervical cancer, only thirty-three years old.

IN 1957 Mercedes meets Manuel Oscar Matus, a composer and guitarist with a passion for traditional Latin American music, just like Mercedes. She falls head over heels for him and his songs despite the fact she is already engaged to someone else. “I was about to marry a rich man, but I married a poor man, and I never regretted it. That poor man was the author of the most beautiful songs I have been singing. If I hadn’t married him, it would have been a big mistake.”

Oscar is also handsome and charming, with conclusive leftist ideals. They tie the knot on July 5, 1957. Mercedes doesn’t want to leave Tucumán, where she has lived all of her life, but Oscar convinces her to move to Mendoza, in the central-west part of the country. The city is a cultural meeting point for artists, where many new beneficial friendships are forged. Mercedes soon becomes pregnant, and on December 20, 1958, she gives birth to a son, Fabián. Making a living from their music is a tremendous challenge; the young family struggles financially and lives in poor conditions that remind Mercedes of her childhood. Though they would love to stay in Mendoza, the looming circumstances force them to move to Buenos Aires, leaving friends and close relatives behind as they begin the journey toward securing better and more stable lives.

But even in the capital, they soon find they are not able to make a living from their music alone, so they take cleaning jobs and work as night porters at hotels. Mercedes, like her parents before her, is suffering under the burden of not being able to feed her family. When she goes to the market, she buys the leftover ribs without meat on them—the bones can give some taste to the soup she cooks. For the first time in her life, she feels discouraged and depressed. This is not how she imagined life to be—not for herself or her son.

Artistically, Oscar Matus is a tremendous inspiration to Mercedes, and she finds great joy in singing his songs. He encourages her to dedicate herself even more to the original Latin American music traditions and to revive folk music, a genre that is about to be forgotten due to the onward march of contemporary music. He is the producer of her first two albums, La voz de la zafra (Voice of the Harvest) and Canciónes con fundamento (Songs with a Foundation). They often give concerts for the students at the campus of the University of Buenos Aires, where Mercedes receives considerable recognition from the students, who are impassioned by her voice and engaging personality. She always takes the time to talk with them and listen to their ideas. But at the same time, as her popularity increases, an artistic jealousy arises in Oscar and it taxes on their marriage. The financial pressure, still extant despite Mercedes’ recent accomplishments, affects their marriage further. Regardless of her affection for Oscar’s music, she is uncertain of the durability of their marriage. It seems that it is only their passion for music that keeps them together.