Historic performance by Mercedes Sosa released on album | “New York, 1974”

Voice. A hype. Guitar. Ready. Until here. Nothing more is needed to shed a thousand skins if those with the conjugated magic Mercedes Sosa and the horse Santiago “Pepete” Bértiz, the guitarist from Mendoza who accompanied her until his death in 1978. She carries the voice and the bass drum. And he, the guitar, of course. This is how simple, how hard and how strong is the performance that the two offered on February 16, 1974, at the same time. City Hall Theater in Manhattan, New York. And it has just seen the light today – after 50 years of release – in digital, CD and double vinyl formats.

Mercedes Sosa, New York, 1974 – that is the name of the new edition – it exists not only because Pedro Pujó and the photographer Jorge Pardo, who worked in these parts of the north, have decided the show to organized on behalf of the Argentine Center for Cultural Information and Distribution in Manhattan, “without much money, but with much love”, but also because the tapes of the narration could be saved after fifty years, renewdigital and ready for release by Sony via, under license from Araceli and Agustín Matus. And support from the Mercedes Sosa Foundation.

“Gold dust” the journalist described this material Gabriel Plaza at the time it was presented at an entertaining event held last Tuesday at the San Martín Cultural Center. And boy is it right. Everything Bértiz plays and Mercedes sings that night in ’74 is gold dust. From symptomatic “Thank you for life”, which Mercedes had already recorded on her tribute album to Violeta Parra in 1971, to “Triunfo agrario”, “Song with everyone”, “When the earth i have” – a moving version, with amazing choruses of “Pepete” -, “I Remember You Amanda” and “If the Singer Closes”sang the same thing, despite threats such as “bolches out” and the acts of sabotage surrounding the concert that day. From “Los Hermanos” and the hard but deep “Al Jardín de la República”, to two very powerful and beautiful versions of “Balderrama” and “El manco Arana”.

These last two minutes the “Negra” also chooses to tell about his own country in those distant areas. “Balderrama is a place where you drink wine and eat empanadas in Salta, in the north of Argentina. It is a very nice place, where all the writers and poets go. The bad thing about these places that become famous is that they might put a bowling alley there, or something like that. Or they start putting up tablecloths and destroying it (…), she can be heard saying, laughing and with her joy 38 years ago That opening phrase of the immortal zamba explodes souls: “On the bank of the canal / when the morning comes / The night comes singing / from Balderrama.” “This character I’m going to sing to you now” – he announces later, before starting with “El manco Arana” – is a character who lives in the north of country, but can live anywhere, on the coast, in Cuyo… He is a man who works despite his physical problems. Instead of asking for alms, that shame we will forever banish, He grabs and goes to work with just his arm to feed his family.”

The “modern” work also functions as a kind of live performance of I will bring a crowd in my voice, the tenth table of the Tucumán woman’s prolific recording journey up to that point, which the Phillips label had released months earlier. So, in addition to the prediction “When you have the land”, “Triunfo agrario”, “El manco Arana”, that record can be heard and it appears in a good part of the 22 songs who attends the concert.

The epochal context that surrounds the material also passes through a busy international reporting schedule which made Mercedes play for the first time in Spain, at the beginning of 1973, in a political framework as complex as that of the United States of America. Richard Nixon, who had supported the civil-military coup in Chile: the Franco’s dictator. Mercedes’ visit to the United States attracted attention from Joan Baez who not only wanted to meet her – she was moved by the recording “Thanks to Life” – but also invite her to sing with her, something that would happen at their concert in Luna Park.

Mercedes Sosa, New York, 1974 including a documentary which not only describes the process of getting the tapes back, but also shows pictures of the concert in black and white. Also immediate reactions of Víctor Heredia, Teresa Parodi, Soledad Pastorutti, Abel Pintos and Araceli Matus after viewing the material. “Mercedes can put Argentine music on the map,” says Soledad. “She spoke in Spanish where she was, the one who understands, understands, and the one who doesn’t, well,” said her grandson. “She had what people saw a veritable reference to Argentine popular music (…) he had such an amazing sense of belonging that there was no restriction on telling it,” reveals Heredia. “How Mercedes tells these simple things about people’s lives; how she appreciates on all those places, all those customs, all those ceremonies, I think, for all those people who were far away, and couldn’t return to those things,” yes Teresa concludes.

And everyone is right, obviously.