Mabel, Sandro’s “little girl” who keeps the least anticipated collector’s item

The first time he heard the word “Sandro”, in the sky the fair of joyon Channel 9, his mother asked him to change the channel: “There’s the madman crawling on the ground dressed in leather “.

Her first crush was actually on Leonardo Favio, but an involuntary trip to the cinema changed his plans. In the neighborhood room they did not project you were mine one summer (1969), and her mother comforted her: “to go We see I want to fill myself with youShe was ten years old and her brother was accompanying her. As soon as the screening began, she saw Sánchez blink like a gypsy deity and the crush was withering.

Asthma started in 1982. Initially Mabel Armentía was misdiagnosed as having tuberculosis. In one year she achieved five hospitalizations, two in intensive care. At the María Ferrer respiratory rehabilitation hospital they saved his life and advised him a “specific device” that did not exist in Argentina.

“If anyone goes to the US, order this: picometer device”, the doctor advised him, in 1985, to check his oxygen at home. In his environment no one made great trips. Except Sandro. Thus was born a story of gratitude and solidarity whose proof survives in a casket.

a gypsy princess

He was born on February 26, 1958 and grew up in Lugano, where he still lives today. Daughter of a housewife and a bus driver, the first meeting took place with a hug on April 20, 1978. Roberto Sánchez was about to write a note Monica presents, on Channel 13, and the girls from the fan club invited her to follow him. They saw him arrive at the Lima Street station and waited for over an hour for the recording to finish. “We looked for his parked cream-colored Taunus Coupé with a black vinyl roof and saw them leave. In this he apologized for keeping us waiting so long, and he told me. ‘Hi baby‘and gave me a kiss. I was speechless. “

January 1980. The Sandro Internacional Fans Club of Argentina must elect a queen, but it is not really a beauty contest: promoters of the Sandristico tribune are sought who, moreover, are distinguished by their gestures of solidarity. The girls rent a room at the Bauen and El Gitano seems to crown Mabel Armentía as a little princess. The tiara survives in 2022 in a box that Mabel doesn’t even want to touch so as not to tear her aura away.

That fairytale summer Mabel and Sandro waltzed. It still seems to feel the palpitations that that sweet piece produced in her, with Roberto’s hands at her waist. She floated, she felt like in a dream, she struggled to move her feet, synchronizing them with hers. It was like seeing the earth’s rotation for the first time.

Today Mabel is 64 and sees that teenager in the photos as if she were someone else. For half a century, Sánchez has been part of her daily life. Every Monday he drives sandro for everyone from the castle of Boedowhere the singer dreamed of building the best recording studio in the River Plate region and where his offices worked for a while.

In a corner of the 957 covered square meters recovered from the fortress, “Mabelita”, as the artist called it, is sent with two hours of curious biographical content. These narrated gems were previously broadcast on Amap digital radio and are available today on Youtube, in the cultural channel CAVA.

Fifty dollars and a surprise

Airports, radios, channels. Aware of the agenda, Armentía planted herself like a tree in all the nooks and crannies to try to cross it. Only a year later, in a meeting in the offices of Tucumán Street, she managed to break the silence. “Have you spoken, Mabelita?“asked his idol. “I thought you were stupid “.

The anecdote of who an extra was in the film I went up I’ll take you It also includes a crippling phone call the day Sandro got married in 2007. “I wrote to him saying my mom was a little down and it was her birthday, and he was kind at a key moment. He confessed to me. that Olga was the woman of his life, who had spent a lifetime looking for her, but Sandro was still single. The one who was actually getting married was Roberto. “

Primary studies at the Armada Argentina school in Lugano, secondary school at Comercial 12 Juan XXIII, much of his education was with El Gitano as a totem pole. Neither the influence of his brother, a lover of national rock and iconic bands such as Vox Dei, nor the insistence of his companions, who invited her to listen to Sabú, changed the object of his veneration.

After those asthma attacks in which the doctor recommended buying it in the United States, Mabel read in the papers that Valentín Alsina’s man would sing at Carnegie Hall in New York. He raised about $ 50, found out the travel date and arrived in Ezeiza. Before getting on the plane, he asked her for a favor. “But do you know where to buy this, Mabelita?“. There were no more certainties than a recipe he treasures today. “Mabel without fail” wrote Roberto and put the sheet in his passport.

When Banfield’s then neighbor returned, Mabel got a call from her office. The device survives in a chest, a mini-museum of breathing. It carries the text “Assess Peak Flow Meter” and has been helping him monitor his condition and dose his medications for several years. The $ 50 was returned to him by Sandro’s relatives.

A love for life

Of all that he documented and recorded with his camera, many pearls remain engraved only on his head. Like that time when Sandro told him, for example, the origin of many of his songs. “There was fog, the planes didn’t leave, he went back to the house of his agent, Anderle, and invented the phrase for the theme The sun fell asleep that Estela Raval recorded before him “, he machine guns with his precision.

The great learning was through the cigarette and that course that ended his life. “I also smoked so as not to be outside. What then did not smoke was a salami”he admits with some embarrassment. “I did it every now and then, a package took me 20 days, but the advertising deceived you. ‘Mark your level‘said a warning. After a while I left. Roberto’s illness was a great lesson on the danger, and also a great campaign on organ donation “.

As if Sandro hadn’t died 12 years ago, “The Girls” organize a conversation in El Castillo, with refreshments and a merchandising lottery. Armentía is one of the most persistent and emblematic representatives of that fandom.

-What was the first show you saw it like?

-I saw him very little, at the Gasometro, in San Lorenzo, in 1971. Later I saw him at the Luna Park in 1972, again in San Lorenzo, in 1974, in Vélez in 1976. I was able to see him up close for the first time in Vélez it was carnival and my father, a bus driver, had finished his program and we crossed the stadium by bus. In that I see Sandro walking in a pink T-shirt and putting on a tuxedo. I couldn’t believe it. Anderle started arguing with the police because instead of clearing the road, the police were chatting with the girls. They put Roberto in the ambulance and took him away.

-And how do you remember the last time you saw him in person?

-19 August 2007. His birthday. We went to her house, she received us as usual. Then he got sick and I couldn’t see him anymore. He suffered from health problems and yet he always had a joke at hand. He encouraged us.

-How much did he let you go?

-In the hallway of his house in Banfield. Likewise, I was very respectful and would never ask for more. Didn’t I tell you it took me a year to talk to him? When he was gone, Olga let me in. She was impressive: she gave you the feeling that she would appear at any moment.

– Your story could have been like Olga’s. Sandro married any woman, not a star. Did you dream of being his partner?

– From a very young age, perhaps, but since I met him I have been like a little sister to him. He was very serious, very gentleman, he never went beyond mambo. Thinking of Olga, any girl from the club could have married him, but as he thought, he would never screw up a fan.

-What was the most sacrificed thing you did for him?

-I don’t see him as sacrificed, but at one point we traveled everywhere, Chivilcoy, Zárate. Once we went to see him in Junín and two days later he was in Mar de Ajó. As there was no direct bus, I returned with a bus to Liniers and took another to Junín.

-What will happen to all your treasures when you are not here?

-If there was a museum, I would gladly facilitate everything. I think the day he is not here I will leave everything to his family, the press material, the tapes. I am one of the greatest collectors, but I have nothing of him. The strangest thing I have is an album released in France and sung by him in Spanish. Also a long comedy sung in Portuguese and edited in Brazil that cost me a lot of money and effort to get it.

-What makes you live among the many objects of someone who is not there?

-Some girls tell me: “I can’t even feel it, it hurts”. But the opposite happens to me. I try to remember him as he asked me in the song about him: as happiness itself.