Piero De Benedictis

Piero Antonio Franco De Benedictis was born on 19 April 1945 in Gallipoli, a port town in the Apulia region of southern Italy. La Nación gave his full surname as De Benedictis Scigliuzzo. In 1948, when he was three, his family emigrated to Argentina. They lived first in Banfield, in the southern suburbs of Greater Buenos Aires, and in 1951 moved to Allen, in Río Negro province, where his father ran a business selling radios and record players. Piero finished primary school in Allen and became interested in music there.

In his later Instagram posts he still described himself as Pugliese, a man of Apulia, and he said his Italian roots were the reason he recorded songs such as "Io vengo" in Italian.

As a teenager Piero studied at Catholic seminaries in Viedma and in Villa Devoto, Buenos Aires, intending to become a priest. There he met socially engaged clergy, including the priest and songwriter Alejandro Mayol, whose songs he would later record on Sinfonía inconclusa en la mar. A recording he made at the seminary in 1964 was sent to Canal 9 and launched his career. He later stepped away from performing for several years to study music and songwriting.

Piero made his television debut in 1964 on Canal 9's Remates musicales, singing Italian melodic songs, and released the singles "El cachivache" and "Rosa, Rosita" (1964) and "La sombrilla" (1965). He performed in Buenos Aires nightclubs alongside Leo Dan, Palito Ortega, Lalo Fransen and Chico Novarro before withdrawing to study music.

In 1968 he met writer José Tcherkaski, and the duo Piero y José produced "Mi viejo", recorded in 1969 with music by Piero and lyrics by Tcherkaski. He won first prize at the Third Buenos Aires Song Festival in 1969 with "Cómo somos", and in 1970 won the international prize at the Festival Internacional da Canção in Rio de Janeiro with "Pedro Nadie", the first Argentine to do so.

Albums such as Coplas de mi país (1972) and Para el pueblo lo que es del pueblo (1973) made him a leading voice of protest song, with "Que se vayan ellos", "Los americanos" and "Las cosas que pasan". After the 1976 coup he went into exile in Spain and largely stopped performing.

Back in Argentina from 1981, he formed the band Prema and recorded Canto de la ternura (1982), Un hombre común (1983), Qué generosa sos, mi tierra (1984), El regalao (1985) and Las galaxias nos miran (1986). Later work included Cachuso Rantifuso (1991) with Marilina Ross and Juan Carlos Baglietto, Piero e Indra Devi (1993), recorded at the Great Pyramid of Giza, Piero & Pablo en vivo desde Colombia (1999) with Pablo Milanés, 30 años de canciones blindadas (2001), Todavía no hicimos lo mejor (2015) and América (2016). In 2022 he released a new version of "Manso y tranquilo" with the band Che Sudaka.

He also acted in films including El profesor patagónico (1970), Heroína (1972), Raúl Perrone's short Bang-Bang (1990) and No seas cruel (1996), and Fotos del alma (1995). In 1998 Governor Eduardo Duhalde appointed him undersecretary of culture of the Province of Buenos Aires.

Piero's first marriage was to María Laura Lampreabe. Their son Mariano died 40 days after his birth, and their son Juan De Benedictis, born in 1975, became a musician and actor. Juan is the father of Ámbar De Benedictis. With his second wife, Mariana Schettini, Piero had two more children, Giuliano and Fiorella, born in the early 2000s.

During his exile in Spain he lived in the province of Guadalajara, including in a former mill in Utande, where he cultivated the land. He held Argentine and Colombian citizenship and spent long periods in Bogotá. In April 2023 he was hospitalised in Ecuador with a respiratory infection, and he returned to touring afterwards.

Piero's songs grew out of the socially committed Catholicism he met in the seminary. In the early 1970s he sang directly about hunger, repression and inequality, and that cost him his place in Argentina during the dictatorship. After his return he described his work as "music of proposals" rather than protest music, and he put his energy into ecology, organic farming projects for disadvantaged young people, children's rights and peace.

He was a public advocate of peace in Colombia. He sang at San Vicente del Caguán during the Pastrana-era talks, supported victims of paramilitary and state violence, took part in the national memory centre's Monumento Sonoro por la Memoria in 2013, and in 2016 met government and FARC delegates in Havana to support the peace process.

"Mi viejo" became one of the most widely sung songs in Latin America, played at Father's Day gatherings and painted on the backs of trucks. Piero once said he had seen the line "yo soy tu sangre, mi viejo" written on lorries. "Para el pueblo lo que es del pueblo" became a rally and stadium chant, and his children's album Sinfonía inconclusa en la mar has been passed between generations of families.

The Asociación Argentina de Actores y Actrices described him as a key figure of Argentine and Latin American popular music whose career also included acting and a lasting social commitment. Days before his death, Saint Laurent opened its Summer 2027 show in Paris with his recording of "Io vengo", carrying one of his earliest songs to a new audience.

• First prize, Third Buenos Aires Song Festival, 1969, for "Cómo somos"
• International prize, Festival Internacional da Canção, Rio de Janeiro, 1970, for "Pedro Nadie"
• Konex Award Diploma of Merit, ballad singer, 1985
• Latin Grammy nomination, Best Latin Children's Album, 2011, for Sinfonía inconclusa en la mar
• Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (Premio a la Excelencia Musical), Latin Recording Academy, 2016
• Order of Democracy Simón Bolívar, Chamber of Representatives of Colombia, 2023
• Colombian citizenship, granted by President Ernesto Samper, 1994

Piero appeared in the films El profesor patagónico (1970) and Fotos del alma (1995), in Raúl Perrone's independent films, and in the 1983 documentaries Buenos Aires Rock and Mercedes Sosa, como un pájaro libre. Mercedes Sosa's famous onstage line "Gracias Piero" traces back to a 1982 concert where he walked on, dressed in white, to sing the last chorus of his song "Soy pan, soy paz, soy más" with her.

In the Mexican Spanish dub of The Simpsons episode "The Ziff Who Came to Dinner", Homer Simpson sings a parody of "Mi viejo". Journalist Maureen Maya Sierra published the book Piero, mi querido Piero in 2017. In 2015 he told the story of "Mi viejo" on Canal Encuentro's series Cómo hice.

In the 2000s, Piero and other directors of the Fundación Buenas Ondas were investigated over alleged irregularities in provincial subsidies for an educational farming project meant to fund scholarships for vulnerable children and adolescents. In February 2012 a La Plata criminal court declared him in default for missing a hearing and ordered his arrest. Later that month the case was declared time-barred and the order was lifted. He was never convicted or acquitted on the underlying allegations, and he did not serve time in prison.

Piero died on the morning of Wednesday 7 October 2026 in Buenos Aires, at the age of 81. According to La Nación he had been in the Hospital Italiano for several days. His family announced the death on his official Instagram account @pierocantautor: "With deep sorrow we announce the death of our dear Piero at 81. His voice, his songs and his message of peace remain with us forever. His light will keep shining in every corner his music reaches. Bon voyage, dear Piero." His manager also confirmed the news. The cause of death has not been made public.

Tributes came from across Argentina and Colombia. Six days earlier he had posted his thanks to Saint Laurent and creative director Anthony Vaccarello for opening their Paris show with his voice.