Chavela Vargas, famed 'ranchera' singer and Mexican icon, dies at 93
MEXICO CITY - Chavela Vargas, who defied gender stereotypes to become one of the most legendary singers in Mexico, has died at age 93.
Her friend and biographer Maria Cortina says Vargas died Sunday at a hospital in the city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.
Vargas rose to fame flouting the Catholic country's preconceptions of what it meant to be a female singer: singing lusty "ranchera" songs while wearing men's clothes, carrying a pistol, drinking heavily and smoking cigars. Though she refused to change the pronouns in love songs about women as some audiences expected, many of her versions of passionate Mexican folk songs are considered definitive.
Born in San Joaquin de Flores, Costa Rica, on April 17, 1919, Vargas immigrated to Mexico at the age of 14. She sang in the streets as a teenager, then ventured into a professional singing career well in her 30s.
