The name of Carlos Gardel is hardly a household word in the English-speaking world. In Latin America, and especially in Argentina, it very definitely is. For many millions of Latin Americans, Carlos Gardel was one of the authentic superstars of his time. Moreover he is still held in extraordinary affection by all who love the irresistible rhythm of the Argentine tango. Gardel was, quite simply, the greatest singer of tangos who ever lived and probably the finest individual talent ever to be associated with this particular form of popular music. He embodied its feeling, its spirit, better than any other artist before or since. In Libertad Lamarque's phrase, he was 'the tango made flesh'. Very few popular singers anywhere in the world have had quite so passionate a following.

The tango developed as a distinctive dance around 1880 in the poorer districts of the city of Buenos Aires, at a time when Argentina was entering an era of prodigious economic growth. Given the ‘marginal’ and semi-criminal social milieu of its origins the story is very similar to that of jazz the tango was long repudiated by Argentina's high society. Its final social acceptance in the country of its birth followed ...

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Links:

• Gardel's biographer, Simon Collier passed away on Feb. 20, 2002.
• Carlos Gardel and the Cinema. By Gardel's Biographer, Simon Collier.
• Vanderbilt Register:Tango tempo sweeps Collier off his feet. June 15, 1996.