1. Perla Batalla was born on c 1964 and is an American vocalist, composer and arranger who first gained international attention as a backup singer for Leonard Cohen before embarking on a solo career at his encouragement.
25 Facts About Perla Batalla
1. 2.
Perla Batalla formed her own record label, Mechuda Music, and released the album Mestiza in 1998, making sales through her website.
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Discoteca Batalla was recorded as an homage to her parents' record shop of the same name.
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In 2005, Perla Batalla recorded a tribute album to Cohen, titled Bird on the Wire, and featured in Hal Willner's Cohen tribute concert film, Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Man.
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Perla Batalla was born in Los Angeles c 1964, to an Argentinian mother, Barbara, and a Mexican father, Jorge.
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Perla Batalla's mother was a singer, and her father was a mariachi musician.
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Perla Batalla's parents ran a record store called Discoteca Batalla in Los Angeles in the 1970s.
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Two years after graduating from high school, Perla Batalla was granted a scholarship to attend the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
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Perla Batalla told an interviewer from the Los Angeles Times in 2001 that she had been attending law school when she took a friend's advice to follow a career in music instead.
10.
Perla Batalla was introduced to Leonard Cohen by her friend Julie Christensen, when Cohen was auditioning for backup singers for his I'm Your Man tour.
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Perla Batalla said in 2001 that meeting Cohen was her "big break and the opening of everything".
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Perla Batalla was a backing singer on Cohen's album The Future and appears on his Cohen Live, which features live recordings from the 1988 and 1993 tours.
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Perla Batalla released her second album, Mestiza, in 1998 on her own label and sold it via her website.
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Heaven and Earth: the Mestiza Voyage followed in 2000, and was described by Mark Holston of Hispanic as a "collection of pensive, poetic themes developed at a leisurely pace" on which Perla Batalla was "a mesmerizing vocalist who casts a lingering spell".
15.
Lechner praised Perla Batalla's performance, writing that her "music caresses with its harmonies and gentle rhythms, then draws you in with an unexpected chorus or an unusual melodic resolution", and describing her as "a born storyteller with a rambunctious sense of humor".
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Discoteca Perla Batalla was a compilation of new compositions interspersed with treatments of traditional Spanish language songs, which was praised by Holston, who wrote that Perla Batalla's "dark amber-toned voice and unique approach to these classics make them new again".
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In 2004 Batalla was invited by the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts to perform songs from the album as artist in residence.
18.
Perla Batalla recorded a 2005 tribute album to Cohen, titled Bird on the Wire.
19.
Perla Batalla's next release, Gracias a la Vida, was an anthology of traditional South American songs inspired by a trip to meet her Argentine family.
20.
Perla Batalla performed "Hey Look Me Over" on tribute album The Best Is Yet to Come: The Songs of Cy Coleman.
21.
In 2010, Perla Batalla released a first collection of holiday songs titled We Three Kings.
22.
Perla Batalla played a singer in the film You Know My Name.
23.
Perla Batalla arranged and directed comedic musical vocal scenes for Will Ferrell's Step Brothers.
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Perla Batalla has been a vocal coach for Jeremy Piven of Entourage.
25.
Perla Batalla is married to chef and television personality Claud Mann, and they have a daughter.