Last November, Maria Grana confirmed that he was saying goodbye to tango following 50 years of experience and to become a iconic genre icon. After her successful presentation at the Belgrano Auditorium to a full house, she returned to her low profile and, as she had anticipated, she concentrated on her composer facet. However, on Tuesday night Andrea Taboada reported in LAM (America) who spoke with one of the singer’s sons and transmitted the desperate situation they experienced over the weekend.
“Mariano wrote me, one of the triplets that María had in her first marriage”, clarified the panelist, in addition to remembering that the artist was the mother of two other children during her second marriage with the record producer Mochín Marafioti. “He is one of his five children, and what he tells me is that he is very overwhelmed”he anticipated, and later read one of the text messages I sent him: “My mother was hospitalized in a mental health clinic in Flores, she tested positive for Covid and was transferred; when I arrived at the clinic to see her they had already transferred her and they did not know where to tell me”.
The little angel explained that concern and impotence invaded him when, following making a tour of hospitals, he did not find his mother. “Thanks to his wife, who through a friend learned that PAMI had a record of where María Graña was admitted,” she revealed, regarding the odyssey they lived to find the whereregardings of the 69-year-old interpreter. She then calmed down and said that she is in a clinic in San Justo, and she would soon be discharged.
“I want to be produnte because surely she, her brother, or someone in the family will speak, and everyone wants to take care of her. In addition to being a star, an institution of tango”, continued Taboada. When the driver wanted to know what Graña’s current situation is, he explained: “Unfortunately, she has been left alone and orphaned, but not because of her children, but because there was also a rebellion on her part; and maybe some colleagues who mightn’t help her.”
Without going into details, he commented that there were some worrying episodes that set off the alarms of his loved ones: “He would have some psychological problems, that’s why the issue of the psychiatric clinic; apparently she has these ups and downs, but she has a will and the family wants to help her”. In this sense, he also highlighted the medical attention he received and the unusual sequence they experienced to find out where the artist was hospitalized: “Unfortunately, many people do not have a good time in places with this PAMI coverage, which María has for SADAIC” .
Graña began his career at the age of 16, he sang with the Osvaldo Pugliese orchestra and toured the world with the Tango Argentino show. In the decades of the ’70s and ’80s he was a figure in television programs dedicated to tango –The tango club, Great values of tango, La botica del angel–, and in the ’90s he focused on the interpretation of the works of Astor Piazzolla with lyrics by Horacio Ferrer, and came to do seasons at the Armenonville in France and on Broadway.
In 1970 he appeared in the contest organized by the television program the people sing, which was broadcast on Channel 7, and won the first prize with “The song of Buenos Aires”. When Ben Molar produced the album Los de siempre, which included 14 unreleased tangos by notable creators and sung almost all by unknown vocalists, one of the latter was María Carmen Graña –her full name– with the song “And never once more your love”, by Francisco Pracánico and Leopoldo Díaz Vélez. In 1973 the pianist and conductor Osvaldo Pugliese invited her to sing in her orchestra, and she made her debut at the Michelángelo nightclub.
“Tango is part of my life. It will continue to be, but it has a very strong emotional charge. I am very passionate, just like tango is, to sing. It was 50 years with tango. I think it’s a long time and an artist must evolve, take other paths, seek new challenges”, he reflected in dialogue with Infobae Cultura last November.
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