Lucha Reyes - Remembranzas Vol. I - LP

When she died, Lucha Reyes' voice had already reached unusual heights; like a curling wave, it had invaded the air at full speed until reaching the skies. It was 1973, and the “Morena de Oro del Perú”, the black diva who sang criollo waltzes and shone in luxury marquees, was 37 years old when her heart stopped on a timely morning: October 31, Criollo Song Day, her day. The streets of downtown Lima, crowded with religious devotees —who, like her, had dressed up in purple to attend the procession of the Señor de los Milagros that day—, went from sublime euphoria to the most intimate and fraternal mourning: not only had they just lost a woman whose vocal cords were thought to be truly made of gold; also 'La Reyes', like them, had emerged from the bowels of the alleys of working-class neighborhoods of the capital, had had the world and a social order against her and yet, being a woman, black, poor and harassed by sickness and violence, had managed to roar from the impossible to not be forgotten, to be loved, and had succeeded.