La balsa

Mexican teen band Los Teen Tops performing in Buenos Aires in 1962. Through the innovation of making Spanish-language covers of American rock 'n' roll hits, the band was an important influence in the development of an Argentine scene.[1][2]

Between 1955 and 1957, the porteño youth was introduced to rock 'n' roll music through films like Blackboard Jungle, Rock Around the Clock, Don't Knock the Rock and Rock, Rock Rock; becoming acquainted with American artists such as Bill Haley & His Comets, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley. Mr. Roll y sus Rockers, a band led by Eddie Pequenino, recorded the first rock 'n' roll music of the country, covering various songs by Bill Haley and also writing original compositions in English. Like Billy Cafaro, another of the first Argentine rock 'n' roll musicians, Pequenino limited himself to imitating foreign artists. As it grew in popularity, rock 'n' roll music began to be embraced by young people, who began to veer away from tango, jazz, and the dance halls that until then they shared with their parents.[3][4] According to Yanko González, "this initial rock represents, basically, a space of youthful fun that expresses itself through a dance with very provocative corporal movements for the time. There its transgression is established: in the audacity of its movements, in the expressive use of the body".[5] In the early 1960s, Mexican band Los Teen Tops, originally led by singer Enrique Guzmán, gained popularity in Argentina and were influential in the development of an Argentine scene by introducing rock 'n' roll songs with Spanish lyrics. Other popular Mexican acts were Los Locos del Ritmo, Los Loud Jets, and the solo work of Enrique Guzmán.[1] Until the release of "La balsa", singing rock music with Spanish lyrics was generally frowned upon, being considered "tacky" and "uncool", as the style was strongly associated with the English-speaking world.[6][7]

The young cast of TV show El club del clan, circa 1963

The early 1960s were also characterized by the emergence and success of the nueva ola, a phenomenon driven by the TV show, El club del clan that revolutionized the national youth music scene. Based on foreign music shows, each episode showed a group of friends that got together to perform various styles of music including rock 'n' roll (and the accompanying twist), bolero and cumbia. Highly popular, El club del clan turned its young cast—which included Palito Ortega, Billy Caffaro, Violeta Rivas, Lalo Fransen, Nicky Jones and Cachita Galán—into the first national teen idols. The show was cancelled in 1964, with the similar Sábados circulares being its successor. Over time, there was a repudiation of the nueva ola, as it began to be overshadowed by the popularity of British Invasion bands. A feeling nonconformity also grew among the youth, that saw nueva ola music as too carefree and lacking in ideology.[4][8] More transgressive than the singers from El club del clan, Sandro rose to stardom with the debut of his band Los de Fuego in 1963, which covered foreign rock 'n' roll songs in Spanish. With obvious inspiration from Elvis Presley, his popular performances on television caused accusations of immorality. Sandro abandoned rock 'n' roll in 1967 and turned to romantic ballads, although he had already established himself as a pioneer of Argentine rock.[4][5][9]

By 1964, after The Beatles' performances in the United States, Beatlemania also reached Argentina, generating the appearance of several bands that imitated their sound and fashion. Local groups began to move away from the American and Mexican rock 'n' roll model in favour of a Beatlesque style and, gradually, Spanish-language songs. Billy Bond's band Los Guantes Negros, continuation of the Bobby Cats, is an example of this transition, featuring a new name and lyrics in Spanish and a sound inspired by the Beatles.[5] However, the most successful band in using Beatles aesthetics were the Uruguayan Los Shakers, who were formed in 1963 and arrived to Buenos Aires two years later. Along with Los Mockers, they were part of the Uruguayan Invasion, a wave of bands from the neighboring country to find success in Argentina. They emerged as one of the first genuine rock products from the Río de la Plata, performing their own compositions. Although their decision to sing only in English prevented their popularity from extending beyond the decade, Los Shakers had a decisive influence so that rock music began to be produced in Argentina.[4][7][10] Hugo Fattoruso of Los Shakers later stated: "It never occurred to us that we could make lyrics in Spanish. That was an Argentine invention."[11] The TV show Escala musical "monopolized the whole beat music movement."[12] It became the only program in the region to feature obscure local bands, and helped popularize the South American garage rock movement that had emerged in response to the Beatles, among them Los Gatos Salvajes, Los Larkins (predecessor of Almendra), and the Uruguayan Invasion bands. These groups could not find their place in El club del clan, which focused on a much more "sweetened and light" style than the new rock that emerged from London and the United States.[13][14]

Young porteños at Galería del Este in Florida Street, a popular place for countercultural teens to meet and buy Swinging London and hippie-inspired clothes and wearable art.[15][16]

View of La Menesunda, a 1965 interactive installation by Marta Minujín. Displayed at the Torcuato di Tella Institute—an important center of youth-led artistic experimentation—the work revolutionized the artistic environment of Buenos Aires.[17]

In June 1966, the self-proclaimed Argentine Revolution overthrew Arturo Umberto Illia and established Juan Carlos Onganía as the de facto president. The military dictatorship aligned with the United States' National Security Doctrine, and began to control universities, trade unions and cultural events.[18] In this context, the Argentine middle class youth was deeply impacted by Beatlemania, the international non-violence and anti-authoritarian movements, and the sexual revolution; symbolizing their identity with rock music and a unisex point of view, with long hair on men as one of its most prominent exteriorizations. The years leading to the 1960s had been characterized by an increase in the cultural activity of the city. For instance, the Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art was founded in 1956; while 1958 saw the creation of the National Institute of Cinematography, the Fondo Nacional de las Artes and the Torcuato di Tella Institute, while the construction of the Teatro General San Martín advanced, which would be inaugurated in 1960. This, coupled with the high quality of university education at that time, left an enduring imprint on the artistic and intellectual development of the country during the following years. A generation gap begun to be evident, characterized by young people's rejection of tango and the double standards of their parents' traditional sexual morality. An underground youth subculture began to appear in Buenos Aires, with its epicenter in the triangle formed by a precarious musical bar called La Cueva in Avenida Pueyrredón, the Torcuato di Tella Institute in Florida Street, and Plaza Francia. Today considered the first hippies of the country (although they did not use that name themselves),[6][19] they adhered to the youth-led counterculture of the decade, which was spreading throughout much of the Western world. Deemed immoral and suspicious, these people — especially long-haired young men — suffered frequent police detention, media criticism, and the rejection of the intelligentsia and the mostly conservative population.[4][7][20][21] Pipo Lernoud stated in 1996: "That is the particular thing that Argentine rock has. Not only was it a musical style but it was a culture that always faced repression by the system."[6]

Under the direction of art critic Jorge Romero Brest, during the decade the Torcuato di Tella Institute became a leading center of avant-garde art production, with young artists venturing into pop art, happenings, installation art, and psychedelic art, as well as featuring folk and beat musical performances.[20] It was a central part of the "manzana loca" (English: "crazy block"), which "[encompassed] nearby art galleries, book shops, and university buildings".[22] The area also "served as a human showcase of the latest fashions and styles".[23] On the other hand, the rock music scene mostly met in La Cueva or gathered in parks such as Plaza Francia to play their guitars,[20] something musician Miguel Cantilo described as, "an act of affirmation and identification," because until then, traditional guitar-playing gatherings were reserved to folk music.[24] In Víctor Pintos' biography of Tanguito, Rocky Rodriguez recalled: "La Cueva was totally like a Babel, it was like those biblical stories of the desert, where caravans come from various sides, and they all land in the same place."[25] Among the group were musicians such as Los Gatos (led by Litto Nebbia), Moris (leader of Los Beatniks), Javier Martínez, Billy Bond (leader of Los Guantes Negros), Los Búhos, Las Sombras (which covered the instrumental rock of the Shadows), Tanguito, Miguel Abuelo, Pajarito Zaguri; writers like Miguel Grinberg, Juan Carlos Kreimer and Pipo Lernoud, and other bohemian artists and poets.[25][26][27] In 1966, this generation created a new style of urban youth music, which tried to reflect an everyday reality absent from popular music since the tango era. It was initially known as "beat music" and later "progressive music", and is now considered the origin of rock nacional (Spanish for "national rock").[28] They mostly emulated the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, although there were also influences from Los Teen Tops, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, and Frank Zappa.[29][30] They were also influenced by the Beat Generation writers.[7] La Cueva was very popular among porteño bohemians, and its existence even came to be known in Paris, prompting Juliette Gréco to visit the bar while in Buenos Aires.[31] It has been compared to The Cavern Club of Liverpool, England.[32] In 2005, Lernoud reflected:

It was in La Cueva where rock nacional really started. Without La Cueva's ferment, that mixture of musical, literary and ideological influences, [Argentine] rock would have been one more on the continent, another pale reflection of English ideas. [...] There is no history of rock, poetry, and struggle in the continent, with the exception of Brazil, as in Argentina, nor in Europe outside England. Because the cultural isolation imposed by the successive dictatorships and the multiplicity of rock influences, produced an original hybrid that was born there, in the late 1965 and early 1966...[25]

As a quieter alternative to La Cueva, its musicians also began to go to La Perla de Once, a bar facing Plaza Miserere that remained open throughout the night. It was frequented by students and several members of the rock underground, and was a site of ideological and artistic discussion.[34] Lernoud recalled in 2017: "We had no choice but to get together [in La Perla] because we were arrested in the street, for our long hair, for our clothes... And our parents did not want to know anything about those friends. Only in La Perla we could be calm, between equals." In addition to "La balsa", well known songs such as Manal's "Jugo de tomate" and Tanguito's "El hombre restante" were written in La Perla.[35] Unlike what happened in North America or the United Kingdom, illegal drugs had a marginal place within the Argentine youth movement, which was more oriented towards the sexual revolution and the guidelines on personal presentation. Nevertheless, various rock musicians began to experiment with amphetamines, a drug that was frequently used by the students in La Perla. Tanguito was one of the first of the group to take drugs, and developed a serious drug dependence that would affect the rest of his life.[20][36][21][35]

Los Gatos performing in La Cueva in 1967, a Recoleta bar frequented by the first Argentine rock musicians.

Los Beatniks in La Perla de Once in 1967, another meeting point for the rock underground, where "La balsa" was composed.

Los Gatos were formed in Buenos Aires in 1967, deriving from the band Los Gatos Salvajes. Originally called The Wild Cats, they were formed in 1964 and eventually translated their name into Spanish and "began performing songs in their native tongue".[37] Basilio "Turco" Adjaydie, Guillermo Romero and Juan Carlos "Chango" Pueblas had decided to leave the band and return to hometown Rosario, following the cancellation of TV show Escala musical in 1966, where the band performed, as well as the commercial failure of their 1965 debut album, which led to the record company going broke.[38] In Rosario, Nebbia had become acquainted with foreign rock and pop through his admiration of the Beatles and Neil Sedaka. With Rosario being a port city, the group also had access to recordings by English bands such as the Kinks, the Zombies and the Hollies, as well as the magazine Melody Maker.[26] Through his musician parents, Nebbia was also knowledgeable of jazz artists such as Chico Hamilton, Gerry Mulligan, Dave Brubeck and Eric Dolphy, and was aware of Brazilian bossa nova since its emergence.[10] Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote that "[Los Gatos Salvajes'] music reflected their enthusiasm for the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Yardbirds; the major British groups had a following in South America, but the few Argentine rock acts were older and had yet to embrace the new sounds in music, putting the young band ahead of the trends."[37] Regarding the music of Los Gatos Salvajes, Nebbia recalled in 2006:

In that time of adolescence, the music that got played in the radio was very commercial, a music that was not representative of what one wanted sound-wise. Neither the lyrics, they were European or American songs with a Spanish version that did not sound the way we spoke, plus they did not talk about the things we needed, that happened to us as teenagers. So when we started playing with Los Gatos Salvajes and I took my first compositions, those songs were very puerile because of the age that I had, but they did have a sound, a rhythm and a way to engage the lyrics that was totally different for the time. The point was the merseybeat, the beat we gave to the guitars.[4]

Only lead singer Litto Nebbia and organ player Ciro Fogliatta stayed in Buenos Aires, and slept for months in public squares while trying to put together a new group. Eventually, they were joined by guitar player Kay Galiffi and drummer Oscar Moro, who were also from Rosario. Alfredo Toth, from Avellaneda, became the final addition to the group after Nebbia taught him how to play the bass.[26][39] Los Gatos became the house band of La Cueva, performing every night from ten in the evening until four in the morning, and receiving a small salary with which they could pay a crowded pension in Once and barely eat.[40] "La balsa" co-writer Tanguito, born José Alberto Iglesias de Caseros, was one of the most influential figures within the La Cueva underground. He made his musical debut in the spring of 1963 as the fronmant of Los Dukes. After leaving the band and aborting a solo project under the stage name Ramsés VII, Tanguito came to know La Cueva through friend Horacio Martínez, and throughout the following years became a fixture of Buenos Aires' rock scene.[41] Tanguito was an admirer of Donovan and Bob Dylan, and his musical style was rooted in Mexican artists like the Teen Tops and Enrique Guzmán.[4] There was a strong mutual influence between Nebbia, Moris and Tanguito; the latter making an impact in the scene for his emotion-driven, less intellectual approach to music, as well as his uncompromising ideas and personal style.[4]

Besides rock music, the new generation "was [also] nurtured by and participated in" renovative musical movements such as tango nuevo and nueva canción.[42] The city's cultural blossoming of the mid-1960s also extended to literature, as part of the Latin American Boom. It consisted of a blossoming of book publications, readership and literary criticism.[4][43] The city also became a "cinephile capital". In particular, the Lorraine cinema became popular among college students for its art film cycles, which included French New Wave and Ingmar Bergman movies. Another place of interest for film culture was Núcleo film society, created in 1954 and led by Salvador Samaritano and Héctor Vena; they also published the film magazine Tiempo de cine since 1960. This diffusion of foreign cinema's new trends led to the emergence of the Generation of the 60s (Spanish: Generación del 60), a new wave of young directors who created Modernist films. The movement included Manuel Antín, Fernando Birri, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson and Rodolfo Kuhn. The latter's 1963 film Los inconstantes was filmed in Villa Gesell, and its depiction of young, modern people with a free lifestyle prompted many teenagers to go the coastal city. Several members of La Cueva headed to Villa Gesell, where Los Beatniks were formed and recorded their 1966 debut single, "Rebelde". The rebellious, antimilitarist song failed to make an impact, but became the first Argentine rock release.[4][44]

Los Gatos in September 1968, on the front cover of Pinap, the first rock magazine of Argentina. The success of "La balsa" sparked the emergence of new bands, music festivals and publications focusing on the movement.

Although Los Beatniks had pioneered rock music sung in Spanish a year before with their song "Rebelde", the single was a commercial failure, selling only 200 copies.[44][47] "La balsa", on the other hand, became an international hit, establishing the commercial viability of rock music sung in Spanish, and turning what originally was an underground scene into a widespread youth culture phenomenon.[71][72][73] The high sales of the single were also impressive considering that up to that point, Buenos Aires had been characterized by its traditional and orthodox musical preferences, favoring tango and folk music.[63] Journalist Juan Manuel Strassburger wrote in 2007: "The impact is even clearer when compared to what was offered by the young music market of the time. [...] These new rockers formed a different way of feeling young: accessible, but also countercultural."[57] According to Iván Adaime of AllMusic, the song brought rock en español "to the wider audiences", and became one of the scene's most ubiquitous tracks.[74] The success of "La balsa" turned Los Gatos into "the motor nerve of the movement," creating an audience for the emerging Argentine rock and paving the way for various new bands, the most notorious being Almendra and Manal.[6][63] These two groups were also products of the countercultural environment of Buenos Aires, and divided the musical panorama by synthesizing two different sides of the city.[6] Almendra made an impact for its surrealism and poetic sophistication, while Manal featured a blues style with urban themed lyrics.[75] Los Gatos, Almendra and Manal are now considered the foundational trilogy of Argentine rock and,[29] by extension, of rock in español in general, as they "communed an authentic, young, serious and artistic [Spanish-language] rock" that was unprecedented.[42] Almendra leader Luis Alberto Spinetta told author Juan Carlos Diez in 2006:

[Los Gatos] were a very good thing because they were the example that [Spanish-language rock] could be done. I believe that "La balsa" was a great inspiration for everyone. And also other tracks of Los Gatos. Each track contained a mystery that, at the same time, was a poetic motivation, a great incentive for us. I liked Litto's ideas and the concept that the group had for playing. They have been a constant influence, somehow. Litto Nebbia was an inspirer, an elementary motor of all this. When you approached him, you realized everything he knew and everything he was going to give.[76]

"La balsa" acted as the kick starter of the consolidation process of a national rock culture.[63] Several record companies took note of the movement, and, beginning in the summer of 1968, "there was no label that did not want to have its own group of shipwrecked in the catalog."[57] This so-called "beat music" (Spanish: "música beat") subsequently "flooded" the market between 1968 and 1970.[77] According to Víctor Pintos, "Los Gatos changed the focus of attention to the artists that had passed through La Cueva." This "scouting race" generated the first professional circuit of Argentine rock, as specialized magazines, festivals and record labels emerged and fed the phenomenon. As a result, and in a matter of months, Tanguito and Miguel Abuelo signed with CBS, as did for other big labels artists that did not come from La Cueva but "shared a similar ethic and ways of feeling music", such as Alma y Vida, Arco Iris and Almendra.[57] At the same time, the first publications dedicated to the movement appeared, including the magazines Pinap, Cronopios and later Pelo; while general interest magazines such as Gente, Primera Plana and Panorama wrote on the phenomenon as well.[57]

However, some of the protagonists of the movement saw the massification of Spanish-language rock as a "defeat". According to Kreimer, "society made room for young people who wanted to join the party of distraction, but not for content that reflected real questions and cravings"; noting that there was no awareness of "a larger collective, nor a countercultural spirit."[57]

Tanguito—accompanied by hippies—playing the guitar in Plaza Francia, a popular meeting place for the porteño counterculture of the 1960s

"La balsa" became a hymn for the burgeoning Argentine hippie movement of Plaza Francia,[63][78][79] with its adherents calling themselves "náufragos" (English: "the shipwrecked" or "castaways") in reference to the song.[24] On September 21, 1967—the date of both Student Day and Spring Day in Argentina—Lernoud, Hernán Pujó and Mario Rabey organized a reunion at Plaza San Martín to evidence the arrival of the hippie movement in Buenos Aires, which gathered around 250 young porteños.[80][81] Lernoud recalled in 2006: "We had to find a way to stop being arrested, because there were already many boys with long hair in Buenos Aires, we were not alone. Since "La balsa", the public began to be seen, and the fact that in the neighborhoods there were boys [like that]."[4] He also described the event as "a publicity stunt of something that already existed, so that—for example—people would know that the long-haired boy they saw on the street was a hippie who wanted peace."[80] The high attendance was sparked by the popularity of "La balsa" and "Ayer nomás", thus Tanguito had a leading role in these kind of gatherings.[4] Much of the press focused on them, including La Razón, Gente, Siete Días and Así.[81] The latter made a series of publications about the hippies of Buenos Aires, with one of the interviewees stating: "We are not hippies, but castaways. This is the current version of a sociological-literary movement founded by Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. I came to this after passing and overcoming other philosophical stages that would become the four paths to reach the Human Truth: yoga, Zen Buddhism, sabat (a fighting doctrine) and karate."[80] Así was later closed in 1970 by the military dictatorship, declaring that it was "characterized by a sensationalism that does not stop to profit from the lowest instincts and passions", and a threat to "morality, modesty and good manners."[82] In a contemporary article, Primera Plana reported that in October 1967, "the number of hippies was estimated at about 200, with preponderance of males: most were middle-class adolescents, who studied or had studied". By November, they "spread out in neighborhoods that had not yet known their customs and appearances".[83] For instance, several bars on Avenida Corrientes became crowded with young, bohemian people.[4]

Unlike the United States, there was no police tolerance for the social phenomenon, and by early 1968, police persecution and anti-hippie sentiment had also grown. The press denounced hippies as a "metropolitan plague" and reported on an "anti-hippie war", with the Argentine Federation of Anti-Communist Democratic Entities (FAEDA) becoming the visible head of the campaign. FAEDA had few members, but relied on subsidies from the U.S. embassy and related entities that had contact with the Secretariat of Intelligence.[4][83] At the end of January 1968, Primera Plana convened young representatives of FAEDA and the hippie movement of Buenos Aires—among them Tanguito—to debate. FAEDA's Amadeo Tedesco asked Tanguito: "You say that you do not form a group. Why then it is heard about a Tanguito group?", to which he replied: "Suddenly you are in a square, with a guitar, as I have been. There are 20 people, grouped or not, but they are there. I never said that the group is mine; I only now find out about that." During the debate, the hippies were accused of promoting the "destruction of the family, morals, feelings and tradition"; and corruption of minors through the drug Dexamyl.[84] The police extended the persecution to barrios such as Retiro, Palermo and Floresta, and FAEDA declared that the number of hippies was between 2,500 and 2,800. The persecution in Buenos Aires caused the dispersion of the movement, most notably to the beaches of Buenos Aires Province—where anti-hippie attacks were even more serious—and El Bolsón in Patagonia; the latter was particularly populated by the sector of the movement that championed a communal, environmentally friendly life.[83][84] Hippyism remained popular in the early 1970s, as the American movement gained much visibility through various mainstream and underground media, like the documentary Woodstock.[85] The most notable hippie communes that appeared in Greater Buenos Aires in the late 1960s are the bands Arco Iris and La Cofradía de la Flor Solar, psychedelic bands that shaped Argentine rock's second generation.[85]