Julio Sosa: El Varón del Tango

By the 1950s the golden age of tango had passed its peak — but one singer still drew the crowds of a popular idol. Julio Sosa, "El Varón del Tango," the Man of Tango, was the last great star of the tango voice.^[1]

From Las Piedras to Buenos Aires

Julio María Sosa Venturini was born on 2 February 1926 in Las Piedras, a town in the Canelones department near Montevideo, Uruguay.^[1] His family was poor — his father a field worker, his mother a washerwoman — and in his youth he took whatever informal jobs he could find.^[1] Like Carlos Gardel before him, he came from the Río de la Plata's shared tango world, where Uruguay and Argentina are one musical country.

In 1949 he crossed to Buenos Aires, the capital of tango, and found fame.^[1]

The Man of Tango

Sosa rose with the Orquesta Francini-Pontier, and in 1955 he reunited with the bandoneonist Armando Pontier, with whom he recorded a series of best-selling albums for RCA Victor and Columbia — records that made him one of the most important tango singers in the genre's history.^[1] His commanding masculine presence and reserved strength earned him the nickname "El Varón del Tango."^[1] He also became known for his recitation of lunfardo verse, above all the poem "Cambalache", which he turned into a phenomenon.

A legend sealed in tragedy

At the very height of his popularity, Sosa was gravely injured in a car crash on 25 November 1964 in Buenos Aires; despite emergency surgery he died the following day, 26 November 1964, at just thirty-eight.^[1] His sudden death stunned the Río de la Plata and fixed him forever in tango's pantheon as a star taken too soon.

Why he matters

Julio Sosa matters because he kept the tango-canción alive as popular music in an age when rock and other sounds were rising. His virile, dramatic voice gave the genre a final great idol, and his recordings with Pontier remain touchstones of the form. Alongside the deep-voiced Edmundo Rivero and the phrasing master Roberto Goyeneche, "El Varón del Tango" stands among the great singers of tango's later age — the last to command the adoration of a true popular idol.