The Immortal Chavela Vargas

Mexico will honor the passing of the great singer Chavela Vargas with an open casket viewing in the Palace of Fine Arts today. If I could go pay my respects, I would. Gone is one of the greatest singers in the Spanish speaking world.
I first met Chavela Vargas when I was a child. She was a neighbor of my uncle, who had a house near Cuernavaca in Ahuatepec, a place she wrote a beautiful song about.
At the time, by ten in the morning she already had several tequilas on her. She liked to come over to sing and eat and drink some more. She was always warm and funny. She used to call my cousin Carlos, who was a big boy, her "sietemesino de oro": her golden seven-months preemie. Sometimes she brought her guitar and she sang for us, with that torrential voice of hers, which at the time was still unbroken. My uncle eventually sold the house and I never heard from Chavela again. In fact, many people thought she had died, given her penchant for hard drinking.  It wasn't until the 1990s, when she was in her seventies, that she resurfaced in Mexico, after going through a scare with tongue cancer (she also smoked cigars). She was brought out from semi-obscurity by the owners of a bohemian nightclub in Mexico City, where she used to hold court to packed, adoring audiences. I saw her sing in that intimate space many times. Not once did I ever manage to make it through one of her performances without dissolving in hot tears of pain, joy and gratitude. She was one of the most powerful performers I have ever seen. She seemed to tower onstage, wearing her very elegant ponchos, accompanied only by a guitar player. I remember meeting her backstage after one of her shows and being shocked at how tiny and almost frail she seemed offstage. But when that raspy voice of hers boomed out, she made your heart quake. She used to have more or less the same repertoire of great Mexican ranchera songs every night, but each time she sang one of those torch songs (we call them slash-your-wrists songs) it was as if it was coming out of her guts for the first time. She gave her soul in every song. And the feeling was not maudlin, self-pitying, or forced. It was brutal. It was tough. It was raw. As real and as strong as an earthquake. But then after each song she would make funny jokes about her now sadly abstemious life or engage the audience in puckish repartee.
I remember a very funny story she told one night about going to the Royal Palace in Madrid to sing for the Spanish royal family. King Juan Carlos was her friend. They invited her over for dinner, she had a great time. When it was time to leave, she put on her raincoat and left. It felt a little big on her. When she got to the hotel, she realized that she had taken the King's raincoat, and she found the King's wallet, with the King's credit cards in it. She then imagined King Juan Carlos trying to fit into her raincoat. Whether this is made up or not, it was such a lovely way to conveying to us her own royalty and humility. For those of us who were transformed (mostly into helpless pools of tears) by her power, she was regal. She was a goddess, which is what fans in the audience screamed at her at the end of each song. I am extremely sad to see her go, but I'm glad to know she lasted with power, grace and humor until the end. She had one of the greatest second acts in life. We have been bestowed with the extraordinary luck to have heard her sing her heart out.

We're Lost In Music

We Are Family, The Greatest Dancer, Like A Virgin, Notorious, Let's Dance, I Need Your Love, Good Times, I'm Coming Up, Upside Down... What do all these great dance hits have in common? They were written and produced by the incomparable Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic, back in the days of Disco.
I hated Disco when I was growing up. I thought it was tacky and stupid. Of course, now I love it, but then I turned up my nose at it. However, as soon as I heard the unmistakable sound of Chic, I thought:  this is good. This is good Disco. A funky, classy, robust, pared down sound (no tacky oingo boingos) that made me want to get down. It boils down to this: the fantastic baselines of Bernard Edwards (may he rest in peace) and the urgent, buoyant, contagious signature rhythm guitar of Nile Rodgers. Plus excellent arrangements (listen to that piano in We Are Family, or the horns in I'm Coming Up or I Want Your Love) and the cool female voices. The best Disco music in the history of the cosmos. Period.
Rodgers is one of the greatest producers of hit songs ever.
Chic is chic.
Yesterday, the free concert by Nile Rodgers and The Chic Corporation, as it is now called, at Lincoln Center Out Of Doors was the most delightful concert I've ever attended. There was no drama to get in, as is increasingly the case in other free Summer concerts in the city like the ever annoying Summerstage  and the perpetually mobbed series in Prospect Park. This was a breeze.  I've seen the Stones, U2, Pink Floyd, Springsteen and many others. They have been awesome, but this was sheer joy. 
Mr. Rodgers showed up, amiably taking pictures of the crowd before the show, clearly happy to be there, impeccable in a white suit and dreadlocks, with his backup band all in white. Remarkably humble, he seemed to me, perhaps a sign of the consummate musician that he is, more of a session magician than a star performer. He delivered absolute dancing heaven.
At one point, he stopped playing to let us know, as he pointed to a tall round building in the back of us, that there many of his greatest hits were composed, with Madonna, with David Bowie and with his musical partner Mr. Edwards, one of the greatest electric bass players of all time. He let us know that Chic was NEVER a cover band. They wrote and arranged many amazing hits sung by Diana Ross, Madonna, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Sister Sledge and many others. But we knew that. Or we should have guessed by the ineffable elegance of most of them. The odd man out is Like A Virgin, which seems to have been composed by Minnie Mouse. Still, it does have its catchy hook.
Rodgers was charming, easy going and youthful looking, even as he confessed about bouts of ill health and taking a walk with a member of Duran Duran on the beach at Ibiza recently, both almost crippled and coughing. He said if he had known he would last so long, he would have taken better care of himself. I can only imagine how Chic partied.
The audience was a great mix of young and old, black and white, lucky tourists and people who got down to dance to those amazing tunes. Had you never known what the hell is Chic, you would still recognize all of them incredible dance tunes. In contrast to some of the pop crap we hear today, these songs deserve to be monster hits. Their influential riffs and baselines have been appropriated by countless artists.
Chic has been nominated four times to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. It's about time it gets in.