Facundo Cabral

Argentina's cultural landscape received intimate examination through the performances and writings of Facundo Cabral, the singer, guitarist, and novelist born in Buenos Aires. Among his signature pieces stood the worldwide success "No Soy de Aqui, Ni Soy de Alla," which appeared in nine languages via recordings by Julio Iglesias, Pedro Vargas, and Neil Diamond. His published books encompassed Conversations with Facundo Cabral, My Grandmother and I, Psalms, and Borges and I. In 1966 the United Nations Department of Education, Science, and Culture (UNESCO) designated him a "worldwide messenger of peace."

Cabral surmounted repeated hardships on his path to global recognition. Born the youngest of three siblings, he grew up under his mother's care once his father abandoned the household. As a youth he relocated to southern Argentina, where further difficulties followed. After an arrest and confinement in a reformatory, he fled the facility and embraced Christianity as a born-again believer. Settling in Tandil, he took on low-wage work such as street cleaning and farm labor.

Drawn to the styles of Atahualpa Yapanqui and José Larralde, Cabral mastered folk guitar on his own. He later moved to Mar del Plata and secured employment performing at a hotel. The 1970 breakthrough of "No Soy de Aqui, Ni Soy de Alla" elevated him to the forefront of Argentinian music. His candid songwriting nevertheless generated friction; branded a "protest singer," he departed Argentina for exile in Mexico during the mid-1970s. He continued traveling widely, appearing in more than 150 nations. After returning home in 1984, he gave a run of shows at Buenos Aires' Luna Park that drew crowds of up to 6,000 nightly. Three years afterward he filled a Buenos Aires football stadium with more than 50,000 listeners. In May 1994 he shared bills with Alberto Cortes.

Cabral maintained an active schedule of concerts and releases into the new century, among them the 2003 live album En Vivo captured at the Universidad de Lima in Lima, Peru. On July 9, 2011, while traveling through Central America, he was fatally shot during an apparent ambush of his SUV on the way to Guatemala City airport. The murder of the "worldwide messenger of peace" triggered worldwide dismay. Facundo Cabral was 74.