Palito Ortega: the day he cried in Susana Giménez’s living room

He was born in Tucumán in 1941, in a field in Lules, near the provincial capital, under the name of Ramón Bautista. However, 21 years later, when his artistic career began to take shape, already based in Buenos Aires, his extremely thin physique led the director of the RCA Víctor record company, Ricardo Mejía, to rename him for life: Ortega stick.

The man who turns 82 and who went through endless situations, from fame to oblivion, from poverty to riches, from economic success to being broke, and from being a child who in Tucumán worked for whatever get some coins that would help in his house to be the governor of the province in 1991 and between 1998 and 2001, National Senator.

Also read: Palito Ortega, about young talent: “We have a lot and we must not give up”

And precisely during his time in Congress, in what was his last activity in politics, he was involved in the most notorious corruption case of those years: bribes in the Senate, a fact for which years later he cried in the living room of Susana Giménez, who had invited him to her television program to honor him.

Palito Ortega turns 82: the complaints against him and the withdrawal of politics

The cause had to do with a labor reform law that had been proposed by the Alianza government, which had assumed power on December 10, 1999, when Fernando de la Rúa succeeded Carlos Menem as president of the Nation.

The ruling party needed a certain number of approvals in the National Senate and Palito had been in office representing Tucumán for a couple of years. When the cause was uncovered, through the revelations made by the repentant Mario Pontaquarto -he was a parliamentary secretary in the Senate- about the alleged bribes that he was in charge of carrying in suitcases, the singer was signed up.

The event occurred in April 2000, just a few months after the new government took office, which ended with a fierce economic and social crisis that led to the resignation of President De la Rúa in December 2001. The Alianza’s political debacle had begun. with these allegations of corruption in the Senate, which led Vice President Carlos Chacho Álvarez to leave the government in October 2000.

La Felicidad is one of the greatest hits of Palito Ortega, who turns 82 and still sings it in his presentations.

Finally, Justice did not condemn anyone because it could not prove that the suitcases with money that Pontaquarto said he delivered had actually been collected by legislators. In this judicial context, it was that Palito Ortega was a guest on Susana Giménez’s program and cried when referring to the fact that getting up from falls “can take a long time.” In that interview he said that he felt “desperate” to be involved in the corruption cause because he had a respectable “life story”.

Palito Ortega turns 82: from the young coffee seller to a benchmark of Latin American music

He was born poor in Tucumán, he became famous in Buenos Aires, where he experienced economic glory and also the crisis, when in the early 80s he brought Frank Sinatra and the skyrocketing dollar melted him. He ended up finding resurrection in Miami, he was a Menemist-Peronist and ruled Tucumán, but he returned to his music. A good part of the youth of the 70s, who did not like him because he was superficial, stopped looking at him with suspicion when he put the body in the health of Charly García, whom he rescued from the abyss.

Always praising the family, Ortega was the second of seven siblings and was also prolific in his offspring: married since 1967 to the actress Evangelina Salazar (who left acting when she married Ortega), the couple has six children: Martín, Julieta , Sebastian, Emanuel, Luis and Rosario.

Also read: The day the voice went out: how was Frank Sinatra’s last show

On his ID, he not only says that his name is Ramón Bautista. He also says that his date of birth is March 8, 1941, the day he usually celebrates his birthday. However, since little Ramón was born in the countryside, his father took a few days off to write him down. And “Ramoncito”, who actually came into the world on February 28, ended up being registered for life eight days later.

In any case, that week of youth that Palito earned from his birth is a minor fact compared to the vitality he shows today, with some 82 years of age who seem less and who still have him going on stage to sing his great songs for him. successes to an audience that acclaims him and asks for them.

Then those melodies that took him to the top, that made him one of the most influential singer-songwriters, although also controversial and questioned many times for his lightness, sound. But he sings and his fans enjoy it. And, in a way, the audience, usually as veteran as he is, goes back to his youth for a while when he chants, “Happiness ha ha ha ha.”