Lhasa de Sela
I would have bought a caravan and followed her all around the world, if I had only known her music before she left this cruel cruel plane of existence.
Have I banged on about her to you? Maybe in person? Or on the facebooks?
Probably.
She sings so passionately and her music just scorches me like a fire.
Her songs are in English, Spanish and French, and she sometimes hits with a Fado type vibe. It’s soul ripping music.
She was influenced by Chilean musician Victor Jara, and when she was a child, she said she wanted to marry him. She didn’t know he had been killed. She was planning an album of his music but didn’t live long enough to finish it.
Lhasa was born in September of 1972 in Big Indian New York, to a Mexican father and an American mother. She wasn’t given a name until she was 5 years old. Her mom was reading a book about Tibet and the word “Lhasa just grabbed her”
Lhasa spent her first 10 years living out of a trailer with her family traveling around Mexico and the United States-her parents homeschooled her and taught her english and spanish.
Her parents split when she 13 and she moved to San Francisco, California with her mom and sisters, and there she heard a Billie Holiday record and decided to be a singer.
In 1991 she went to Montreal to visit two of her sisters who were going to Circus School. I read somewhere that she had nine siblings. She decided to stay in Montreal and make it her home.
Lhasas circus sisters
She started playing music around Montreal and was signed to the Canadian Audiogram Label. She made her first record “La Llorona” in 1997-it was a mix of originals with 1930’s & 1940’s era Latin American songs-it was influenced by Mexican music, but also Klezmer and Gypsy Jazz and torch songs according to the wikipedia article I read.
It was a very successful debut-winning the Felix award in Quebec for best world music artist.
I am going to add the wikipedia link below so you can read a very sensitively written history of her career and travels.
She moved to Paris for a while, again with her circus sisters and she put out 2 more albums.
Lhasa was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2008 and finished her third album “Lhasa” in 2009 and sadly for everyone, she passed on to the celestial plane on January 1, 2010.
It snowed for 4 days starting the day she died and her friends saw this as a last gift to them from Lhasa.
I love her music so much and I wish I had discovered it while she was still living. I only stumbled on it (I don’t remember where or how) a couple of years ago.
My favorite album of hers is her 2nd album “The Living Road” It makes me feel like I’m traveling on an ancient dirt road in a caravan with her and her circus sisters. And she is singing from deep deep deep in her soul.
You should go listen to her music right now!
