World Music Legends

She’s one of only two women even to be awarded Spain’s prestigious La Cruz De La Orden de Isabela La Catolica. She was a friend and drinking partner of the late José Alfredo Jiménez. She lived with painter Frida Kahlo. And after she’d abandoned music, she was tracked down by film director Pedro Almodóvar, who put her career back on track after a long break.

            Oh, and she’s one of the greatest female ranchera singers ever to emerge from Mexico—even if she isn’t actually Mexican—who sold out Carnegie Hall in a special appearance. Add to all that the fact that she’s a lesbian, and you have a remarkable tale.

            Isabela Vargas (the Chavela came later) was born in Heredia, Costa Rica in 1919, the daughter of a mess orderly who died young and a woman of good Spanish stock who owned a ranch. From the beginning she was a rebellious girl, and at the age of 14 she ran away to Mexico, where she survived by singing on the streets.

            She was in her thirties and already a heavy drinker by the time she began recording. By then the Lady of the Red Poncho, as she was nicknamed, had been a muse to Kahlo and fellow painter Diego Creek, and also to one of Mexico’s greatest composers, Agustin Lara.

            The boleros she sang (and, after 1961, recorded) were usually composed by men, odes to heterosexual romantic love. Vargas—who’d eventually become known in Mexico and Spain by the single name—never changed the gender when she sang them, even on her most famous piece, “La Macorina.” She could sizzle, simmer, steam, and growl.

            Given the time and place, she couldn’t come out of the closet, especially as her career took off during the 1960s and ’70s.

            She lived a wild life, womanizing—she still walks with a limp she received when younger; she jumped out of a window after being spurned by a woman—and drinking in a manner that made it seem as if she didn’t care whether she lived or died.

            But could she sing? Very much so, although drinking and hard living roughened the texture and tone of her voice, deepening it until she sounded almost masculine. However, that didn’t take the edge off the emotion. A listen to any of her 30 albums confirms the power she possessed, the Billie Holiday of Mexico.

            And like Holiday, while she could control her voice, she couldn’t control her life. For all that she might have inspired others, she was a train wreck herself, an alcoholic who simply couldn’t stop drinking. In 1979 she left music and seemed to focus on drinking her life away in nondescript bars throughout Mexico City.

            She might well have succeeded had it not been for Almodóvar. A longtime fan, he tracked her down in 1990 and helped her rebuild her life, free of alcohol for the first time, and used her in the soundtracks to his films. She moved to Spain, where she’d always been an iconic figure, to the extent that some towns had streets named for her.

            Vargas even began performing again, playing concerts around the world. She found an outlet besides singing, acting, as she appeared in Werner Herzog’s Scream Of Stone, and as Death “La Pelona,” in Frida, Selma Hayek’s ode to Vargas’s former lover. Vargas also appeared on the celebrated soundtrack, singing her own seductive anthem “Paloma Negra,” in addition to the Mexican favorite “La Llorona.” That in turn inspired the 2003 album Frida, featuring rancheras from such legends as José Alfredo Jiménez, Carlos Gardel, and, of course, Vargas herself.

            She began performing again, culminating in an epic performance in Mexico City before a joyful crowd of 20,000 people. And in September 2003, at New York’s Carnegie Hall, she embodied “La Cancion Mexicana” in a way few performers have managed.

            She’s lucky to have lived into an age where she can truly be herself and accepted. The woman who was once chased out of a small Mexican town for wearing pants was finally able to come out as a lesbian at the age of 81.

           Chavela Vargas has managed to defy every expectation, all through her life. Her lifestyle should have killed her, but she survived. She grew from street singer to one of the great ranchera singers. And even now, in her 80s, she continues to flourish and never grow old.
           “I am a friend of life. At 80, life tells me to behave like a woman and not like an old woman.”