Buika on ‘The World’
Betto Arcos has the story on Spanish singer Buika’s new album, El Ultimo Trago. It’s a collaboration with Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés. The record is a tribute to one of Buika’s earliest influences, the great singer of Mexican rancheras, Chavela Vargas. Rancheras are kind of like torch songs…
Originally aired on PRI’s “The World” on December 3, 2009
[audio:http://media.theworld.org/audio/12032009.mp3]Buika remembers the first time she heard Mexican rancheras, growing up on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
“My dad left when I was 9 years old and my mom used to listen a lot to to Chavela, you know, to just take care of her sadness. ”
It was only as a teenager that Buika really understood the meaning of those Mexican songs.
“I remember that I understand my first ranchera and it was “when my first boyfriend left me.”
Buika says since that time, she’s felt an affinity with Chavela Vargas because she heard the sound of solitude in Chavela’s voice.
And as she started singing and writing her own songs, Buika realized that Mexican rancheras dealt with sadness and pain in a very direct way.
Take the song “Un Mundo Raro,” by one of the most respected composers of rancheras, José Alfredo Jiménez.
“To sing Jose Alfredo songs or any of all those amazing composers from this record, to sing these songs, it hurts. It hurts because it makes you open some doors from your past, from your memories.”
Buika’s new album includes seven rancheras, four of them by Jose Alfredo Jimenez and three other classics, such as this one, “Cruz de Olvido.”
When she finished the album, Buika sent it to Chavela. After she listened to the album, Chavela sent her approval in the form of a poem, calling her “Passion.”
“And she was telling me something that makes me feel like really special, ‘you know what, I think that we have to learn words and sing to please the others.”
Buika will be pleasing many people this coming weekend in Mexico City, where she will perform songs from her new album. She is especially excited because Chavela called to tell her she will be attending the concert.
For “The World,” this is Betto Arcos in Los Angeles.