CHAVELA VARGAS:
'Chavela Vargas'
Tropical Music GmbH 68.983
Reviewed by Peter Krog
Most of the top singers of Mexico are women, and 77
year old Chavela Vargas is one of best. She represents the old style of
cancion ranchera (farmers' songs), which one perhaps could call "the
Spanish blues".
Ranchera music is hugely popular in the Spanish speaking world. This mexican style is urban song, frequently melodramatic and sentimental. Chavela sings her emotions, and is sparsely backed by guitar, bass and percussion. Her voice is her musical instrument it ranges emotively from whispering, howling and begging, to imploring and sobbing.
And Chavela Vargas' own life has in fact been dramatic. For three years, as a child, she suffered from polio. At the age of six her father showed her how to handle a gun and rifle. And in the space of about 15 years she drank a lifetime supply of Tequila. She adores Edith Piat in whose life she sees many parallel lines.
Chavela Vargas is a true Mexican legend with power and spirit. She's toured concert halls, pubs, squares and bars with José Alfredo Jiménez, Mexico's most famous ranchera-singer/songwriter of all time. Four of his songs, 'Vamonos' (Let's go), 'Corazón, Corazón' (Heart, my Heart), 'La noche de mi mal' (The Night of My Misfortune) and 'En el último trago' (At the last gulp) can be heard on this CD, which is a compilation of three CDs recorded by Chavela Vargas in Madrid, Spain, in 1993 and 1994. The remaining ten songs are mainly traditional ranchera songs all worth listening to, over and over again, it you want to get into the mood of the "Spanish blues".
This review is published on print in Djembe Magazine, no. 19, January 1997.
Feel free to quote or reproduce any article in Djembe under condition of
stating source. Photos are stricly copyright of the photographer. Contents
of the article are purely the opinion of the author, and do not in any way
reflect the official position or thoughts of Djembe on those issues. Consider
Djembe an uncensored, open "bulletin board"
