Mercedes Sosa: song with no boundaries.

• Author: Bach, Caleb.

With a powerful voice that catapulted her to international stardom, this popular Argentine singer remains grounded in the emotions and daily struggles of common people

She has been called the doyenne of Latin American folksingers, la gigante de la nueva cancion, and la voz de las Americas. Friends also refer to her as la pachamama (the earth mother) or even la negra Sosa because she favors black gowns and ponchos and still has hair the color of a raven. But for most of her fans, this woman of imposing stature, with her striking Andean features, stands for conscience and justice, survival in the face of hardship, hope for the poor and disenfranchised.

Argentina's Mercedes Sosa, now in the thirtieth year of her professional career, has played the biggest houses of Europe and the Americas and recorded hundreds of son's that run the gamut from traditional folk music through jazz and rock to popular masses and epic hymns. But what still matters most to her are la gente del pueblo, her solidarity with their struggle, her conviction that goodness will prevail even in the direst of times. This is the essence of her music whether she delivers it with stentorian bombast and a driving beat or the quiet tenderness of a lullaby. Either way people listen intently.

From the outset was there a presentiment of this quest for freedom? Perhaps. Afterall, sixty years ago, Sosa was born on July 9, which is Independence Day in Argentina. And did the locale play a role, as well? Undoubtedly. Tucuman, her birthplace, remains the cultural heart and soul of Argentina's northwest; it is known for its civic pride and political activism. Sosa's paternal grandparents, from Santiago del Estero, were of Quechua stock, whereas her maternal grandmother was French. "That's where I get my pale skin, the French side of the family," the singer explains. "My deceased sister, Cocha, had green eyes." Sosa began as a dancer, especially a dance teacher, and even now, her ample proportions notwithstanding, as she sings she moves about the stage with agility and grace. "I always enjoyed singing for friends. I still do. At age twenty I won a contest, the prize being a two-month contract with a local radio station. I made my professional debut in 1965 at a regional folk music festival in Cosquin, a small town near Cordoba. That's when la nueva cancion [the new song movement] really got going."

Until the 1960s, regional folk music usually meant sentimental paeans to the landscape and romanticized images of quaint country folk going about their business. The songs rarely acknowledged the limited horizons defined by poverty, ignorance, poor health, and periodic violence that characterized the harsh life of most campesinos. In keeping with the times, the so-called new songs changed all that. In form and instrumentation they remained faithful to the folk tradition, but with new candor they talked about real social issues: human rights, enduring peace, a decent standard of living for everyone. Were they protest songs? "I've never liked that label," Sosa states pointedly. "They were honest songs about the way things really are."

Throughout the seventies, Sosa developed a devoted following performing what became nueva cancion standards: compositions by Argentina's Atahualpa Yupanqui, Eduardo Falu, and Horacio Guarany, as well as those of the Chileans Violeta Parra and Victor Jara. On occasion she wrote her own songs, but for the most part her reputation grew out of an ability to perform material of others in such a personal way that the words and music seemed to be her own. Unlike many of the other old-guard nueva cancionistas who were also guitarists, Sosa depended on others for accompaniment, although occasionally she would join in using a traditional drum, or bombo leguero, which became something of a trademark. But it was the Sosa voice that people came to hear. She...