POP MUSIC REVIEW : Social Commentary From Near, Sosa

A host of political and musical themes justified the pairing of Holly Near and Mercedes Sosa on the Wiltern Theatre stage on Thursday.

After all, besides humanizing the struggle for gay rights, Near has gone out on the limb for dozens of causes, including Latin-American human rights, by singing from nueva cancion’s (new song’s) politically conscious repertoire. Sosa, for her part, is a monumental figure in Latin-American and European music, anticipating and, in a sense, outliving nueva cancion during her 30-year career.

But pairing Argentina’s Sosa with Near also invited comparisons--not just of the artists’ highly individual talents and styles--but of the pitfalls and rewards of socially committed music.

At her best, Near’s feathery, Celtic voice displayed a seductive moment of power in “Plain and Simple Love,” one woman’s disarming confession of love to another woman. At her worst, the Bay Area singer showed an annoying tendency to slide into melodrama or to undermine her good intentions with the one-dimensional delivery of a preacher too convinced of the sermon.

The 54-year-old Sosa, by contrast, dominated the evening, sure at each turn of her vocal and dynamic range and her seemingly endless ability for artistic growth, layering the caberet singer’s delicious nostalgic decadence in tangos like “Los Mareados” over her six-piece band’s subtle jazz-samba-rock flavored arrangements.

And if her mountainous frame seemed to carry a sun on its shoulders by concert’s end, maybe it was because Sosa’s voice has emerged from too much darkness, too many fratricides, too many disillusionments. Overt messages songs would have been superfluous. Survival is enough.