Piero, the Italian-born Argentine singer-songwriter best known for "Mi viejo," a song that became a fixture of family tributes across Latin America, died on Wednesday in Buenos Aires at 81. He had been hospitalized at the Hospital Italiano.

Born Piero Antonio Franco De Benedictis on April 19, 1945, in Gallipoli, in Italy's Puglia region, he arrived in Argentina at age three. His family lived first in Banfield, south of Buenos Aires, and then in Allen, in Río Negro province, where his father sold radios and record players. He studied as a seminarian in Viedma and in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Devoto, and made his television debut in 1964 singing Italian ballads.

His breakthrough came after he met the writer José Tcherkaski. "Mi viejo" ("My Old Man," viejo being an affectionate word for father) came out in 1969 and opens with the line "Es un buen tipo mi viejo," "My old man is a good guy." The Fundación Konex, a cultural foundation, counts more than 500 recorded versions.

In the early 1970s his songs turned openly political. The albums "Coplas de mi país" (1972) and "Para el pueblo lo que es del pueblo" (1973) made him a leading voice of Latin American protest song. He faced threats and censorship before the March 1976 military coup, after which he went into exile in Europe. He later took Colombian citizenship, and Colombia remained one of his largest audiences.

He returned to Argentina in the early 1980s and shared stages with Mercedes Sosa, León Gieco, Fito Páez and Pablo Milanés. The Fundación Konex gave him its Diploma of Merit in 1985, and the Latin Recording Academy gave him its Musical Excellence Award in 2016.

He kept performing until this year. In April he toured Colombia with his children's show "La sinfonía inconclusa en la mar," and he marked his 81st birthday on stage in Bogotá.

His last public message, on Instagram on October 1, thanked the fashion house Saint Laurent for opening its summer 2027 show in front of the Eiffel Tower with his recording of "Io vengo," the Italian version of an early song, "Yo vengo." "It is very powerful to hear my voice there at the start of the show," he wrote, describing a song about humble origins and neighborhood life.

The wake is on Thursday, October 8, from 12:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Sala Velatoria Lázaro Costa, at O'Higgins 2842 in the Belgrano neighborhood. The funeral procession leaves on Friday at 11 a.m. for the Recoleta Cemetery.