When the singer Chavela Vargas began performing in Mexico, in the 1950s, she dressed as a woman. But "it didn't work." She thought she "looked like a transvestite," she would say decades later, in an ...

I came across chavela purely by accident. While working in Palm Springs on a story about the desert's craft beer scene, I noticed chavela on the board at Desert Beer Company. I assumed it to be a ...

When American filmmaker Catherine Gund met Mexican ranchera singer Chavela Vargas in 1991, both women were at major crossroads in their lives. Subscribe to read this story ad-free Get unlimited access ...

An unplanned, spontaneous 1991 interview of Chavela Vargas shot 20 years before her death in 2012 sets the scene for the documentary Chavela, which covers her rise to fame, her downfall and rebirth as ...

It’s no wonder that Chavela Vargas has long been Pedro Almodovar’s muse. According to sources, “in her youth she dressed as a man, smoked cigars, drank heavily, and carried a gun”. She could have been ...

Legendary Mexican singer Chavela Vargas receives justifiably laudatory treatment in this documentary celebrating her refusal to compromise together with her musical brilliance. In 1992, Catherine Gund ...

Mexican singer Chavela Vargas became a queer icon, had purported dalliances with Frida Kahlo and Ava Gardner, challenged gender stereotypes in her country and forged an impressive career in bohemian ...

When I was twenty-three, I found myself killing time in San Joaquín de Flores, Costa Rica. The town was within commuting distance of the capital, San José, but had few metropolitan airs: it was a ...

Five years after Chavela Vargas' death on Aug. 5, 2012, a documentary about the iconic singer and actress will air for the first time in the U.S. By Leila Cobo Chief Content Officer Latin/Español, ...

At the peak of her initial popularity during the 1950s, Mexican singer Chavela Vargas wore trousers and a poncho as she huskily crooned lost-love ballads to women. Yet she didn’t announce that she was ...

A legend of Latin American song has died. Chavela Vargas was a cultural icon across the Spanish-speaking world, with a voice that redefined notions of beauty and an attitude that brashly bent gender ...