Oscar del Priore interview

My 3rd Buenos Aires Tango adventure,  Friday May 6, day 88 A couple of different advisors had given me suggestions on how to approach tango professionals to request interviews for my video project. One person said I should get an assistant that spoke fluent Castellano and have them call and set up the appointment. JanTango said that I should be introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Since I only had a couple of weeks left in Buenos Aires and didn't have a Castellano speaking assistant, I decided to go ahead and contact a well know tango personality  named Oscar del Priore. Mr. del Priore has spent his entire professional life working as a tanguero.  As un announcer he had the pleasure of introducing: Troilo, Pugliese, D'Arienzo, Fresedo, De Angelis, Calo and many others. He also teaches the history of tango, tango lyrics and lunfardo at IUNA Instituto Universitario Nacional del Arte. In addition he is  a writer and a composer. The title of his most famous book is: El Tango: de Villoldo a Piazzolla y Despues. I contacted Mr. del Priore by phone and asked if he would be willing to be interviewed and he agreed. He doesn't speak English, so I did the  best I could with my limited Castellano vocabulary.  I was anxious to find out how tango, which had been an immensely popular dance in the 1940s had virtually disappeared by the late 1950s until the mid 1980s. I was under the impression that the Argentine government had played a major role in the decline of tango during that period. Mr. Prior assured me that the government had very little to do with tango's loss of popularity. The main reason was that people preferred to listen to other types of music like rock n roll. They didn't want to listen to or dance to tango music. Tango music slowly evolved in a new direction, lead by Astor Piazzolla, directed more toward listeners and less appealing to the dancers. Tango never went away, it just ceased to be the nation's favorite music. In the early 80s the success of the tango stage production Tango Argentino abroad inspired foreigners to become interested in learning to dance tango again, and tango started a comeback.  When I asked Mr. del Priore how the popularity of tango today compared to the 1940s, he said that there is was no comparison to the tango phenomenon  back in the 1940s. Mr. del Priore loves his work and has lead a enviable life.