Mercedes Sosa: Mercedes Sosa en Argentina

Mercedes Sosa en Argentina is a double album by Argentine singer Mercedes Sosa. It was recorded live at the Teatro Opera de Buenos Aires in February 1982 and released on the Philips label. The concert and recording marked Sosa’s return to Argentina after three years in exile.

Described as the driving force behind the nueva canción movement, singer Mercedes Sosa was born and raised in Tucumán, Argentina. She began her career as a performer at 15 after winning a radio hosted competition. The nueva canción movement was a political movement of protest music that spread across Argentina and Chile during the 1960s. The movement was attacked as part of the 1973 CIA-sponsored coup which overthrew democratically elected Chilean President Salvador Allende.

Because of her repertoire of songs championing human rights and democracy, Sosa was treated as a serious threat by the military regime which came to power in Argentina. In 1975 she was harassed and arrested during a live performance. Audience members were also arrested and imprisoned. Death threats followed and she left Argentina in 1979, and she lived in exile in Paris and Madrid for three years, before returning to Argentina in triumph in 1982.

Over her long career, Sosa collaborated with artists as diverse as Joan Baez, Pata Negra and Luciano Pavarotti. She was loved and admired across Latin America and lived a life of extraordinary musicianship, political principle and engagement in human rights and other causes.

Here she is performing one of her signature songs, Gracias a la Vida with Joan Baez: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMuTXcf3-6A

Mercedes en Argentina is a remarkable and moving listen. Her voice is extraordinarily rich and textured, exuding humanity, compassion and integrity. Listening to it led me to the equally powerful Misa Criolla, composed by Ariel Ramirez in 1964. This was one of the first non-Latin masses, written in the vernacular. It is a mass composed using folk and traditional instruments alongside soloists and choirs. Ramirez recorded with Sosa in 1999. It is a beautiful and haunting work and can be heard here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJPZXSpxBkE