La Lupe

Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond, known professionally as La Lupe, was born on December 23, 1936, in the barrio of San Pedrito in Santiago de Cuba, and died on February 29, 1992. A singer of boleros, guarachas, and Latin soul, she became one of the most prominent Latin performers in New York City during the 1960s and 1970s before retiring in 1980. Her Broadway appearance came in 1971, when she was part of the cast of Two Gentlemen of Verona, which transferred to Broadway in December of that year after originating at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park, where she performed alongside Raul Julia.

Yolí's father worked at the Bacardí distillery in Santiago de Cuba and was a significant early influence on her life. In 1954 she slipped away from school to compete on a radio program where listeners performed imitations of popular singers, winning the contest with a bolero by Olga Guillot called "Miénteme." The family relocated to Havana in 1955, and she enrolled at the University of Havana to train as a teacher, completing that instruction before pursuing a professional singing career, a path she shared with her admired contemporary Celia Cruz.

In 1958 she married Eulogio "Yoyo" Reyes and formed a musical trio with him and another female singer called Los Tropicuba. The group dissolved along with the marriage in 1960. She then began performing solo at a small Havana nightclub called La Red, where her clientele included Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Marlon Brando. That same year she recorded her debut album, Con el diablo en el cuerpo, for Discuba, the Cuban subsidiary of RCA Victor, backed by groups directed by Felipe Dulzaides and Eddy Gaytán.

In 1962 she was exiled to Mexico, after which she sought out Celia Cruz for support in finding work. Cruz recommended her to Mongo Santamaría in New York City, where Yolí performed at a cabaret called La Berraca and recorded more than ten albums over five years. She signed with Tico Records, launching a prolific period that extended through the 1960s and into the 1970s. Her second marriage, to salsa musician Willie García, produced a son before also ending in divorce.

Her repertoire spanned son montuno, bolero, boogaloo, Dominican merengue, Puerto Rican bomba, and plena. She recorded cover versions in Spanish and accented English, including "Yesterday," "Twist and Shout," "Unchained Melody," "Fever," and "America" from West Side Story. Her recordings brought composer Tite Curet Alonso to wider prominence for his boleros in the salsa style. For much of the 1960s her partnership with Tito Puente made her the most acclaimed Latin singer in New York City. Audio engineer and producer Fred Weinberg, who worked with her across many albums as well as with Celia Cruz, Mongo Santamaría, and Tito Puente, described her in the studio as "a talent hurricane." In the late 1960s her career declined, a trajectory attributed in part to the rise of salsa and Celia Cruz's arrival in New York. Fania Records, which had acquired Tico, ended her contract in the late 1970s.

Following her Broadway appearance in Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1971, Yolí continued recording into the early 1980s. Her final studio album on a secular label appeared in 1980. By the early 1980s she had fallen into financial hardship. In 1984 she injured her spine in a household accident and initially required a wheelchair, later using a cane. An electrical fire subsequently left her homeless. After attending an evangelical Christian crusade at which she reported being healed, she abandoned her practice of Santería and became a born-again Christian. In 1991 she gave a concert at La Sinagoga in New York performing Christian songs.

La Lupe died of a heart attack on February 29, 1992, at the age of 55, and is buried at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. In 2002, New York City renamed East 140th Street in the Bronx as La Lupe Way in her memory. Her recording of "Puro Teatro" closes Pedro Almodóvar's film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and her recording of La Virgen Lloraba was used in the 1996 film The Birdcage.