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Cantora: Mercedes Sosa
Recommended New Music!
by Catalina Maria Johnson, Ph.D.
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Cantora: Mercedes Sosa´s Grand Finale
Cantora: Minstrel (feminine), songstress, woman who sings
Mercedes Sosa, known as: ”The Voice of the Americas”, was an enormous presence in the lives of several generations of Latin Americans – in every possible way. She was a large woman, frequently garbed in a brightly-colored Andean poncho that swayed when she sang. Her powerful voice, of a rich and unusual timbre, seemed to emerge from the depths of her being to reach out and touch listeners directly.
It is hard to remember a time when this songstress, who passed away in early October at the age of seventy-four, was not a part of the soundtracks of our lives or of our parents’ lives. From days of adolescence when many of us picked up guitars and learned Latin American protest songs, we learned through her of other musicians who had been silenced by death at the orders of dictators and how she had fled Argentina and exiled herself shortly after she as well as her audience had been detained by police interrupting a concert in progress. Later, we enjoyed the CD’s that had celebrated her triumphant return to a post-dictatorship Argentina, and finally in recent years, discovered in delight that she would fearlessly apply her marvelous voice more contemporary rhythms.
Her latest album, released internationally simply as “Cantora”, is a selection from the duets that were released in Latin America as two separate volumes. In “Cantora”, Sosa collaborates with a highly distinguished roster of Latino singers and songwriters, some of which are a generation or even two younger than she, easily deploying her voice in melodies that blend her folk into pop, rock, alternative, and even hip-hop.
Her voice, at seventy-three, is not that of the seventeen-year-old Haydee Mercedes, whose professional “cantora” career took off after she easily won a radio contest in her native town of Tucuman, Argentina. In these that would be her final recordings, time has given it gravelly edges, yet it remains an awe-inspiring instrument and provides a formidable challenge to the younger musicians. Although Shakira does seem daunted by the challenge of being side-by-side with Sosa, emoting a shade too enthusiastically in “La Maza”, most of the musicians such as Lila Downs in “Razon para Vivir”, dialogue vocally with Sosa with great affection and respect, and without even a hint of what would be a most futile intention to compete. Singing with Julieta Venegas in “Sabiéndose de los Descalzos,” which sings of being poor, and tired, and having no shoes, Mercedes Sosa stays faithful to her commitment to singing about the plight of the disenfranchised. The mix of genres on the CD works well for all involved – one of the most surprising and successful collaborations occurs with Calle 13, young hip-hoperos from Puerto Rico, who in “Hay un Niño en la Calle” poignantly entreat in call and response with Sosa in favor of Latin America´s homeless youth.
The album succeeds and indeed, one could say, that Mercedes Sosa’s sixty-year career marked such an indelible history in our lives, precisely because she always remains true to her own voice as part of the “Nueva Canción” – New Song – the folk song movement that swept through Latin America in the seventies, expressing hopes and dreams for a better world. In this fitting finale to an extraordinary career, one of our greatest cantoras passes the torch to a newer generation of singers, that they not forget that music still has the power to transform the world.
