Chavela Vargas

Iconic Mexican cancion ranchera singer Chavela Vargas began singing after the age of 30 but continued until she was well into her seventies. Born in Costa Rica in 1919, she first sang professionally in the early '50s. Her first recordings appeared in 1961, and she became quite popular during the 1960s and '70s in her native land and in Europe. Although she retired in 1979, a victim of alcoholism, Vargas returned in 1990 after accepting a role in the Werner Herzog film A Cry of Stone. She contributed a song to the soundtrack of Tacones Lejanos in 1991, and in 1993 entered a recording studio for the first time in decades. Chavela Vargas died in August 2012 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico at the age of 93. ~ John Bush