Chavela Vargas

Among interpreters of Mexican cancion ranchera, Chavela Vargas ranked as the finest and most enduring, launching her singing career after the age of thirty yet sustaining live performances that enthralled crowds well into her seventies. Her birth occurred in Costa Rica in 1919. Professional engagements began in the early 1950s, when she joined legendary José Alfredo Jiménez on tour. Initial recordings surfaced in 1961, after which she attained considerable popularity throughout the 1960s and 1970s both in Mexico and in Spain along with the rest of Europe. Alcoholism forced retirement in 1979, yet Vargas reemerged in 1990 upon taking a part in the Werner Herzog film A Cry of Stone. The next year she supplied a track for the Tacones Lejanos soundtrack, and in 1993 she resumed studio work after an extended absence. Chavela Vargas died in August 2012 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico at the age of 93, after suffering from heart and respiratory problems.