A brief moment of silence, a shot of tequila and a grito de un amor perdido for the great ranchera songstress Chavela Vargas.
When I hear Chavela Vargas, I hear ranchera at its most definitive. Her voice expresses hardships and pain, loneliness, bitterness, discontent, desires, love lost and love with a capital ‘L.’
Here’s BoingBoing’s Xeni Jardin’s obit. Here’s the LA Times obit. And here’s the brief Wikipedia background on Chavela.
UPDATE: In Costa Rica, I saw Vincente Fernandez is on tour. El rey de la cancion ranchera is on his Despedida tour, his retirement tour. I suspect that will be a Madison Square Garden sell-out and as a fan of ranchera history will try to check it out.
