Mercedes Sosa trivia: 80 facts about the Argentian singer’s life!

Mercedes Sosa is one of the most celebrated Argentian singers and one of the best known worldwide!

1. Her full name is Haydée Mercedes Sosa
2. Mercedes Sosa was born in 9 July 1935
3. She is also known as La Negra
4. She was an Argentine singer who was popular throughout Latin America and many countries outside the region
5. Her roots were in Argentine folk music
6. Mercedes Sosa became one of the preeminent exponents of nueva canción
7. She gave voice to songs written by many Latin American songwriters
8. Her music made people hail her as the “voice of the voiceless ones”
9. Mercedes Sosa performed in venues such as the Lincoln Center in New York City, the Théâtre Mogador in Paris and the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City
10. She had sell-out shows in New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Roman Colosseum during her final decade of life
11. Her career spanned four decades
12. She was the recipient of several Grammy awards and nominations
13. Including a posthumous Latin Grammy award for Best Folk Album
14. She served as an ambassador for UNICEF
15. Mercedes Sosa was born on 9 July 1935, in San Miguel de Tucumán, in the northwestern Argentine province of Tucumán
16. She was of mestizo ancestry
17. Her parents were Peronists, although they never registered in the party
18. She started her career as a singer for the Peronist Party in Provincia Tucuman
19. Her name then was Gladys Osorio
20. In 1950, at age fifteen, she won a singing competition organized by a local radio station
21. Then she was given a contract to perform for two months
22. She recorded her first album, La Voz de la Zafra, in 1959
23. A performance at the 1965 Cosquín National Folklore Festival brought her to the attention of her native countrypeople
24. Mercedes Sosa’s first husband was Manuel Óscar Matus
25. With whom she had one son
26. They were key players in the mid-60s nueva canción movement
27. It was called nuevo cancionero in Argentina
28. Her second record was Canciones con Fundamento, a collection of Argentine folk songs
29. In 1967, Mercedes Sosa toured the United States and Europe with great success
30. In later years, she performed and recorded extensively, broadening her repertoire to include material from throughout Latin America
31. In the early 1970s, Mercedes Sosa released two concept albums in collaboration with composer Ariel Ramírez and lyricist Félix Luna
32. These albums were Cantata Sudamericana and Mujeres Argentinas
33. She also recorded a tribute to Chilean musician Violeta Parra in 1971
34. One of Mercedes Sosa’s signature songs was Gracias a la Vida
35. She also increased the popularity of songs written by Milton Nascimento of Brazil and Pablo Milanés and Silvio Rodríguez both from Cuba
36. After the military junta of Jorge Videla came to power in 1976, the atmosphere in Argentina grew increasingly oppressive
37. Mercedes Sosa faced death threats against both her and her family
38. She refused for many years to leave the country
39. At a concert in La Plata in 1979, Sosa was searched and arrested on stage, along with all those attending the concert
40. Their release came about through international intervention
41. Banned in her own country, she moved to Paris and then to Madrid
42. Mercedes Sosa returned to Argentina from her exile in Europe in 1982
43. Several months before the military regime collapsed as a result of the Falklands War
44. She gave a series of concerts at the Teatro Opera in Buenos Aires, where she invited many of her younger colleagues to share the stage
45. A double album of recordings from these performances became an instant best seller
46. In subsequent years, Mercedes Sosa continued to tour both in Argentina and abroad
47. She was performing in such venues as the Lincoln Center in New York and the Théâtre Mogador in Paris
48. In a poor condition of health for much of the 1990s, she performed a comeback show in Argentina in 1998
49. In 1994, she played the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City
50. In 2002, she sold out both Carnegie Hall in New York and the Colosseum in Rome in the same year
51. A supporter of Perón, she favored leftist causes throughout her life
52. She opposed President Carlos Menem, who was in office from 1989 to 1999
53. She supported the election of Néstor Kirchner, who became president in 2003
54. Mercedes Sosa was a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for Latin America and the Caribbean
55. In a career spanning of four decades
56. She worked with performers across several genres and generations, folk, opera, pop, rock
57. Mercedes Sosa participated in a 1999 production of Ariel Ramírez’s Misa Criolla
58. Her song Balderrama is featured in the 2008 movie Che, starring Benicio del Toro as the Argentine Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara
59. Sosa was former Co-Chair of Earth Charter International Commission
60. She won the Latin Grammy Award for Best Folk Album in 2000 (“Misa Criolla”), 2003 (“Acústico”), and 2006 (“Corazón Libre”)
61. As well as many international awards
62. In 1995, Konex Foundation from Argentina granted her the Diamond Konex Award
63. This is one of the most prestigious awards in Argentina, as the most important personality in the Popular Music of her country in the last decade
64. Her album Cantora 1 won two awards at the Latin Grammy Awards of 2009
65. She won Best Folk Album and was nominated for Album of the Year
66. The album was also awarded Best Recording Package
67. Suffering from recurrent endocrine and respiratory problems in later years, the 74-year-old Mercedes Sosa was hospitalized in Buenos Aires on September 18, 2009
68. She died from multiple organ failure on October 4, 2009, at 5:15 am
69. She is survived by one son, Fabián Matus, born of her first marriage
70. He said: “She lived her 74 years to the fullest. She had done practically everything she wanted, she didn’t have any type of barrier or any type of fear that limited her”
71. The hospital expressed its sympathies with her relations
72. Her website featured the following: “Her undisputed talent, her honesty and her profound convictions leave a great legacy to future generations”
73. Her body was placed on display at the National Congress building in Buenos Aires for the public to pay their respects
74. President Fernández de Kirchner ordered three days of national mourning
75. Thousands had queued by the end of the day
76. She was cremated on October 5
77. Mercedes Sosa’s obituary in The Daily Telegraph said she was “an unrivalled interpreter of works by her compatriot, the Argentine Atahualpa Yupanqui, and Chile’s Violeta Parra”
78. Helen Popper of Reuters reported her death by saying she “fought South America’s dictators with her voice and became a giant of contemporary Latin American music”
79. Mercedes Sosa received three Latin Grammy nominations for her album, in 2009
80. She went on to win Best Folk Album about a month after her death