VICENTEFERNANDEZ. The king of popular song, face of mariachi orchestras in Mexico, Vicente Fernandez, died Sunday, December 12, leaving a country in mourning.
He was nicknamed the “Sinatra of mariachis” and had sold more than 70 million albums: Vicente Fernandez died Sunday, December 12, the day of the pilgrimage to the Virgin of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico. King of popular song, star of the Mariachi orchestra, this artist with fifty years of career was 81 years old. With his disappearance, a whole country mourns one of its icons. Vicente Fernandez had been hospitalized since the beginning of August, after being the victim of a fall in his ranch Guadalajara, capital of the state of Jalisco. It was in this city that he died, his family announced on Instagram.
Born on February 17, 1940, Vicente Fernandez has become since his beginnings in 1965 one of the idols of Mexico, in particular thanks to his performances of “rancheras”, these popular songs about the torments of love, orchestrated by trumpets and guitars. In fifty years of career, the mustachioed artist, assumed macho, always in boots, will have sold more than 70 million albums and collected three Grammy Awards and nine Latin Grammys.
It was the American newspaper The Houston Chronicle which nicknamed him the “Sinatra of ranchera music” in 1991. From his marriage to Maria del Refugio Abarca Villaseñor, Vicente Fernandez had five children. One of them, Vicente Fernandez Jr., was kidnapped in 1998 for 121 days by a criminal gang demanding $ 10 million (and who cut off two fingers). Originally from Guadalajara, known for being the cradle of Tequila and the stronghold of the drug cartel of the same name, the most dangerous in the region, Vicente Fernandez had become the symbol of this Mexico torn between light and shadow.