REMEMBERING LOLA BELTRAN
By Shana Hugh

F"Huapango Torero," "La Cigarra" and "Paloma Negra" are three of the songs from more than seventy albulms performed by the late, great singer from El Rosario, Lola Beltran. Affectionately known as "La Grande" ("The Great One") and "La Reina de la cancion ranchera" ("Queen of Ranchera music"), Lola Beltran will be remembered on March 7, which would have been her 68th birthday. Lucilia Beltran Ruiz was born in El Rosario, Sinaloa (just an hour's drive from Mazatlán), in 1932. While working as a secretary for the famous Mexican radio station XEW, she was prompted by singer Matilde Sanchez and Miguel Aceves Mejia to make her own name in music. That was the

beginnning of her more than forty-year music career. During those four decades, Beltran brought ranchero-- or mariachi-- music from México to stages all over the world. Cherished internationally, Beltran captured audiences from New York City, to Paris to Moscow. She performed in front of John F. Kennedy, Charles de Gaul and the king and queen of Spain. Her triumph as a singer, as well as an actress in several films, is fondly remembered by her adoring fans, immortalized in her many recordings and even remembered in downtown Mazatlán, where restaurant Pedro y Lola bears her namesake. When she died following a stroke in 1996, her body was returned to El Rosario, where she was laid to rest.

 

 

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