At age 81, the legendary Mexican singer Chavela Vargas, an icon of several generations of Latin American lesbians, has finally come out of her transparent closet. What everybody in Mexico and other points south have always known is now official—Chavela is a dyke. What's new, and wonderful, is that she's proud of it.

Chavela, who was recently awarded Spain's highest honor, the Great Cross of Isabel la Católica, told the Madrid daily El País, "I've had to fight to be myself and to be respected. I'm proud to carry this stigma and call myself a lesbian."

The rebellious daughter of a Costa Rican rancher, Chavela, who was born in that country in 1919, ran away to Mexico when she was 14 years old. In Mexico she began singing on the streets. 

She 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 and retired in 1979, a victim of alcoholism, and returned in 1990 after accepting a role in the Werner Herzog film Scream of Stone'. She also 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. She contributed a song to the soundtrack of Tacones Lejanos, and in 1993 she entered a recording studio for the first time in decades. In 2002, she played in the film Frida, about the artist Frida Kahlo, and in actual life she had an affair with Kahlo. Hard-living, drinking, and womanizing, Chavela hit bottom and resurfaced more times that she now cares to remember.

"I'd get a new car on Friday and by Monday I had nothing left; I'd get drunk and go sing on the streets and be late for the show. I used to drink tequila. I drank everything I ever owned. That's why I left nothing over there," Chavela says, remembering her life in Mexico, which ended in an alcoholic orgy that lasted almost 15 years, during which she seldom sang.

Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar tracked her down to an obscure bar in a suburb of Mexico City a few years ago, and helped her rebuild her life and her career. Last April, Chavela, who now lives in Spain and does not drink, gave a triumphant concert before 20,000 people in Mexico City's main plaza, the Zócalo.

Chavela still loves guns, but she now claims it is not true that she once kidnapped a woman at gunpoint. It is said that her slight limp is the result of having jumped out a window once when another woman disappointed her in love. This, Chavela does not deny.

Refrain

Chavela Vargas is the Billie Holiday of Mexico. If you've never heard her sing, do yourself a favor and go get one of her CD's right now. My favorite is the classic Chavela Vargas Le Canta a México, on the Orfeón label, but any will do. And don't miss her two knockout contributions to The Songs of Almodóvar (Emd/Blue Note), a fab soundtrack CD that also includes 50's Chilean crooner Lucho Gatica and Cuban greats La Lupe and Bola de Nieve.

Her Music

Chavela Vargas wrote some of the most erotic songs one woman has ever addressed to another. Paloma Negra, her most famous song, manages to be humorous and heartbreaking, tender in one breath and fierce in the next.

Additionally, in Chavela Vargas' case, most "boleros" are written by (mostly self-declared heterosexual) men, and thus the object of love is usually a woman. So in general, Chavela Vargas refused to change the gender of the texts of these songs (as some other singers have chosen to do sometimes, according to their usually heterosexual orientation).  Being a lesbian, this worked out rather "conveniently" for her, to a certain point, except that she also had to maintain the male counterpart of the songs, creating a sort of musical transvestism. For example, in her famous song "La Macorina", based on an Asturian poem by Alfonso Camín, and for which she wrote the music, she "indirectly" (and probably at the same time proudly) sings that:

"Touch me here, Macorina,

Touch me [...]

Touch me...

Your breasts, flesh of a breadfruit

your mouth, a blessing

of ripe guanabana

and your beautiful, curvy waist

reminding me of that 'danzón'

I'm still simmering, from the 'danzón'"

...though in this song the male voice is never really referenced specifically.

What is a rather oddly ironical fact is that Chavela Vargas suffered harsh years of alcoholism, which affected her voice, making it hoarser, and which ended up making her abstract musical transvestism more convincing, to the point that when you hear her latest CDs, a lot of people wonder if she is a man. And by the way, her latest CDs are basically the result of a comeback that openly gay Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar promoted, since apparently he had always been a devoted fan of Chavela and was sad to see how her difficulties had driven her away from her musical career, so he decided to help her rise from her own personal hell, to let the world enjoy still a bit more of her talent. In a way like what happened between Dusty Springfield and the openly gay Pet Shop Boys in the 1980's...

Source:  http://www.thinkexist.com/English/Author/x/Author_4749_1.htm
http://www.thegully.com/essays/mex/001211vargas.html 
http://www.dreamwater.com/women/theresles/music3.html