- published: 22 Mar 2010
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Pedro Vargas Mata (San Miguel Allende, 29 April 1906 - Mexico City on 30 October 1989) was a Mexican singer and actor, from the golden age of Mexican cinema. He was known as the "Nightingale of the Americas".
Born into a family of modest means, Pedro Vargas sang in the church choir in his hometown from the age of seven. In 1920 he came to Mexico City and immediately began singing in the choirs of several churches and giving serenades. He met the composer and tenor Mario Talavera, his guide and mentor, who recommended him to Professor José Pierson. Vargas received voice training from Pierson, and soon after, the opportunity to participate in the opera "Cavalleria Rusticana" on January 22, 1928 at the Teatro Esperanza. He traveled to the United States with the Orquesta Tipica de Miguel Lerdo de Tejada. On his first visit to Buenos Aires he recorded two of his own compositions for the Victor label: "Porteñita mía" and "Me fui", with musical backing from pianist Agüero Pepe and the legendary violinist Elvino Vardaro. He was one of the best interpreters of the composer Agustín Lara, as well as many other composers from Latin America with great success, and enabled their music to traverse the most diverse countries in the continent, mainly Argentina, Colombia and Venezuela. With a very extensive repertoire that included lyrical songs such as "Jinetes en el Cielo", ranchera songs like "Allá en el Rancho Grande", boleros such as "Obsesión" (sung as a duet with Beny Moré) and nostalgic songs like "Alfonsina y el mar", Pedro Vargas received the well-deserved title of "The Nightingale of the Americas" from the public.
Julio Iglesias (born Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva; September 23, 1943) is a Spanish singer and songwriter whose romantic image, magnetic stage presence, and expressive music made him one of the best-selling artists of all time. By the early 21st century he had sold hundreds of millions of albums in more than a dozen languages. He has sold over 300 million records worldwide in 14 languages and released 77 albums. According to Sony Music Entertainment, he is one of the top 15 best-selling music artists in history. While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads, his success has continued on as he entered new musical endeavors. He is the father of singer Enrique Iglesias.
Iglesias was born in Madrid, the eldest son of Dr. Julio Iglesias Puga and María del Rosario de la Cueva y Perignat. Iglesias' father's family was from Galicia, and Iglesias' mother an Andalusian.
In the 1960s, he studied law in Madrid and was a goalkeeper for one of Real Madrid's football teams. On September 22, 1963, he was involved in a car crash, resulting in an injury to his spinal cord. He said, "I had a car accident; [a] very, very strange car accident...I lost control of the car and rolled it, resulting in what they call 'paraparexia,' which is not paraplegia. It's a compression in the [spinal] cord, in the sense of the neck...my spinal cord; and I was very, very ill for three years." His doctors thought he would never walk again; indeed, his legs were left permanently weakened, and they continued to require therapy as of late October 2010. However, slowly, he began recovering his health. To develop and increase the dexterity of his hands, he began playing guitar. When he recovered from his accident, he resumed academic studies and traveled to the United Kingdom to study the English language, first in Ramsgate, then at Bell Educational Trust's Language School in Cambridge.