Tito Alberti

The relatively well-paid job allowed Tito to purchase his first professional drum kit and, in 1942, he was invited by producer Miguel Caló to record Azabache - a milonga written by his friend, Homero Expósito.

The album's success brought him to the attention of Buenos Aires big band leader Raúl Marengo and in 1944 of Mexican songwriter Agustín Lara (internationally known by then for his pop standard "Granada").

Her subsequent relationship with the populist Labor Minister, Juan Perón, helped lead to Argentina's Peronist movement (the country's central political development since 1945), among whose first adherents was the increasingly well-known drummer.

The 1981 collapse of the numerous unregulated brokerage houses that opened in Argentina during Economy Minister José Alfredo Martínez de Hoz's free-wheeling tenure cost the musician his fortune, including a yacht and his collection of four roadsters.

Named an Illustrious Citizen of the Province of Buenos Aires in 1999, he was survived by his wife Martha and two sons, both of whom are musicians (Charly Alberti was, for a number of years, the drummer for Argentine rock group Soda Stereo).