Chavela Vargas : Piensa en mi (CD edition: 1991)
FLAC img + CUE + Scans

TRACKS
1. Soledad
2. Rival
3. Que Te Vaya Bien
4. Piensa En Mi
5. Santa
6. Las Ciudades
7. Acariciame
8. Noches De Ahuatepec
9. Peregrina
10. Se Me Olvido Otra Vez


“I love with the liver, heart has nothing to do with it."
"A woman has many lives to live. In order to do so many things and break so many limits, as I’ve done, one has to be very much a woman." Chavela Vargas


The best and longest preserved of the Mexican cancion female ranchera singers, Chavela Vargas began singing rather late in life — past the age of thirty — but continued well into old age, charming audiences until she was well into her 70s. Born in Costa Rica in 1919, at only 14 she fled her native country due to lack of musical career opportunities, seeking refuge in Mexico, where an entertainment industry was burgeoning. For many years she sang on the streets but in her thirties she became a professional singer. She first sang on a professional level in the early '50s, and toured with the legendary José Alfredo Jiménez. Her first recordings appeared in 1961, and she became quite popular during the 1960s and '70s, both in her native land as well as across the ocean in Spain and 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. One year later, she contributed a song to the soundtrack of Pedro Almodovar's Tacones Lejanos, and in 1993 she entered a recording studio for the first time in decades. Since then, and for about 10 years she enjoyed a worldwide success, first in Europe, then almost everywhere else. She debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2003 at the age of 83, at the behest and promotion of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, a long-time admirer and personal friend of Vargas.
She is featured in many Almodovar's films, including La Flor de mi Secreto (The Flower of My Secret) in both song and video. She has said, however, that acting is not her ambition, although she had previously participated in films such as 1967s La Soldadera. More recently she appeared in the 2002 Julie Taymor film "Frida", the biography of the stunning mmexican painter Frida Kahlo, singing "La Llorona". Her classic "Paloma Negra" was also included in the soundtrack of the film. Vargas herself, an open lesbian, was, as a young woman, alleged to have had an affair with Frida Kahlo, during Kahlo's marriage to muralist Diego Rivera.