page_title: Edmundo Rivero
section_title: Singing career
hierarchical_section_title: Edmundo Rivero / Biography / Singing career
caption_attribution_description: English: Argentine tango singer, Edmundo Rivero, performing live.
context_page_description: Leonel Edmundo Rivero was an Argentine tango singer, composer, and impresario.
context_section_description: After working as a cover singer in small venues, Rivero got his first radio appearance singing a duet with his sister Eva in Radio Cultura. He spent the early 1930s alternating radio work with dance hall gigs.
  After singing for bandleader José De Caro in 1935, Rivero's qualities attracted José's more famous brother Julio De Caro, who drafted Rivero into his orchestra, which incorporated non-traditional instruments and was a fixture of the Pueyrredón theatre ballroom in Flores. Rivero gained some fame, and the moniker that stayed with him forever: el feo (the ugly guy).
  Even though Rivero was featured in many Argentine films in the 1930s and 1940s, the early forties were a time of uncertainty for him. Even bandleaders who did hire him (such as Humberto Canaro) would not retain him for long. Later, Rivero would claim that his deep voice was a severe handicap during this time.
  In 1944, Rivero joined Horacio Salgán. His three-year tenure there left no recordings (with his Bartók influences, Salgán was too "far out" for the general tango audience) but earned Rivero the respect of avant-garde and jazz musicians. To make ends meet, Rivero also worked in a duo with fellow singer Carlos Bermúdez that recorded tangos in a more commercial vein for the Colombian market.
  In 1947, Rivero was hired by Aníbal Troilo, who was having a stellar run of recordings with new hit songs, many of them in collaboration with lyricist Homero Manzi. During his three years with Troilo, Rivero shared the limelight with Floreal Ruiz and Aldo Calderón, and recorded 22 songs, including the mega-hit Sur, where Troilo's melody frames Manzi's elegy for a young love and also for the old barrio.
  Having found fame and fortune, Rivero left Troilo in 1950 and started a solo career. For accompaniment, he would alternate between guitar quartets and a full orchestral format for the remainder of his career. The most famous musician to follow Rivero was guitarist Roberto Grela, who was also the guitarist of Troilo's quartet.
  Guitar-only formations were used by countryside milonga artists, early tango singers, and even Carlos Gardel in his youth, but Rivero's 1950s recordings, during a period of total dominance by big orchestras, was a bold statement, which forever cemented his identification with the silent masculinity of the countryside, as opposed to the emphasis that "urban" tango put on stories of lost love.
  In the sixties, Salgán and Rivero had their revenge, and recorded several tunes together. Rivero also collaborated with other artists, who noted his generosity and his devotion to music. In 1966 he appeared in the film Buenos Aires, verano 1912.
caption: Edmundo Rivero performing.
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