Ginette Acevedo born 15 April 1942

Ginette Acevedo (born April 15, 1942), is a Chilean singer, who won the Viña del Mar International Song Festival twice: the international genre in 1964 and the folkloric genre in 1971. 

Born Mirna Jinett Acevedo Palma in San Fernando, Colchagua, Chile. Due to work of her father, a soldier assigned to the Infantry School, the family moved from San Fernando to San Bernardo when Ginette was two years old. It was in that commune of Greater Santiago that she developed all her school studies and began to be interested in singing. Like almost all performers of her generation, her first stage was on the radio. Every Sunday morning her voice could be heard in "La revista postal telegráfica", on Radio Minería. Ginette had recently turned 18 and still considered singing as a hobby. She had no studies on the subject and clung to what experts described as a "naturally imposed" register. Her early repertoire was New Wave hits, and imports from American balladeers, such as Connie Francis and Brenda Lee.

Ginette was then inspired by the Argentinian folk singer Ramona Galarza. "The cadence of the songs was very much in line with my way of singing," she recalled,  who in 1963 recorded her first single, the guarania "No quiero ser", and immediately established herself as one of the new successful young voices in the country, capable of crossing generations with a combination of freshness and tradition. That song spent nine months at the top of the radio ranking and was chosen the best of the year by disc jockeys and the press. Four other hits by Argentine composers followed: "La canción del Jangadero", the strumming double "Puente Pexoa" and "Collar de caracolas", and the guarania "Anahí".

                        Here's "El Jangadero" from above LP

                                   

After marrying her manager, the well-known show producer Luciano Galleguillos, the singer travelled to Buenos Aires in 1964, determined to make a professional space for herself among Argentines. It was hard work, which forced her to an intense promotion in the provinces, but which soon distinguished her with great radio and even film appearances. From the end of 1964, Ginette Acevedo continued her career in Argentina, where she was presented as "The sweet voice of America", achieving her definitive professionalization and Latin American projection, and becoming the cover of the prestigious magazine Folklore. 

One her greatest successes at the time was the recording she made for Ramón Ayala's musicalization of Pablo Neruda's "Poema 20". "Many could not believe that I was Chilean, more than anything because of the repertoire I sang. It was assumed for a long time that I was an Argentine singer," she recalls. In addition to releasing albums and promoting herself through extensive tours, she was summoned in 1967 to participate in two musical films: Pichones de hombre and Chao, amor. 

In 1967, she participated in three television programs in Buenos Aires: "Telemúsica", hosted by Raúl Matas; "Argentina canta y baila", where she was part of the stable cast along with Atahualpa Yupanqui, Eduardo Falú and Los Fronterizos; and "Domingo 67", in which she was the main figure. She also worked in radio and performed in up to six dance clubs weekly, but with a failing marriage and the death of her father, she suffered from a mixture of stress and depression, and she saw no greater future for a musical activity that at that point only produced tension for her. She decided to give up her professional promotion in Argentina and return to Santiago. Acevedo returned to Chile in the mid-1970s, and wrote a farewell letter to her admirers that was published in Ritmo magazine. She believed that with it she had closed her musical career forever.

It was her friend Palmenia Pizarro who convinced her to return to the stage. With the argument that "I couldn't be so irresponsible as abandoning my fans like that," Acevedo recalls, Palmenia took her to the Philips label, where a song that Óscar Cáceres and Luis Barragán had composed with her voice in mind was waiting for her. It was called "La torcacita", and it told the story of the despair of a man immersed in heartbreak. For the singer, the song touched chords very close to her recent emotional depression. After rehearsals and arrangements, the song won the folkloric section of the 1971 Viña Festival and is to this day the most popular in his repertoire. The song was later included on the album Ginette (1972).

After a couple of years of intense work, a second retirement took place this time because of her new marriage and her decision to settle down to family life after the birth of their first child. In 1977, the top brass of the Channel 13 stars came to her house to convince her to return to television, to Gonzalo Bertran's program "Esta noche fiesta". It was the first of several television slots that had her presence since then and for almost all of the eighties. From that period, her most important album was Mujeres de Chile (1979), a work composed by Willy Bascuñán of which the song "Mujer en el tiempo" stood out. Despite her constant presence on television, self-management was the only channel of work for Ginette Acevedo during that time. Without a record contract, from 1982 she herself looked for a way to publish and distribute her own recordings. 

At the end of 2003, the singer decided to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the appearance of her first single with a concert at the Providencia Theater in the capital, in which Palmenia Pizarro also participated. Until well into the 2000s, Ginette Acevedo has remained active in a constant dynamic of live performances and self-releases. Among the latter, the duet album with Valentín Trujillo Desde el alma (2012), recorded only with piano and voice, stands out. Together with composer Julio Zegers, she was recognized by the Chilean Society of Musical Authors and Performers (SCD) as a "fundamental figure of Chilean music" in 2022.

(Edited from Musical Popular, Chile)