Rebekah Del Rio | |
|---|---|
 Rebekah Del Rio in November 2021 | |
| Background information | |
| Born | July 10, 1967 |
| Origin | Chula Vista, San Diego, California, United States |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1994–present |
| Labels | Baja Basement Records (Indie Label) DreamWorks Nashville Giant Records |
Rebekah Del Rio (born 10 July 1967) is an American singer/songwriter and actress from Chula Vista, California.
The San Diego Union-Tribune voted Del Rio one of the "Top 10 Singers in San Diego", after which she moved to Los Angeles in 1989 to further develop her career. After recording the song "Llorando", a Spanish-language version of Roy Orbison's "Crying", she moved to Nashville in 1994. There, she was signed to Irving Azoff's label, Giant Records, and recorded her first album, Nobody's Angel. The title track was released on a compilation album and made it to No. 2 on the singles charts in the Netherlands.
Her vocals can be heard on numerous soundtracks including Sin City, Streets of Legend, Man on Fire, and Mia Sarah. Del Rio made a cameo appearance in David Lynch's 2001 film Mulholland Drive, singing "Llorando" a cappella.[1] She is also featured in Richard Kelly's film Southland Tales, providing solo vocals in a string arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner". She performed the song "No Stars", written in collaboration with David Lynch and John Neff, at the end of Part 10 of Twin Peaks: The Return.[2] Joining Del Rio on stage was the musician Moby on guitar.[3]
The filmmaker David Lynch created the scene in the neo-noir film Mulholland Drive in which Del Rio sings in the Club Silencio after hearing her sing "Llorando" at his home studio on the suggestion of the music agent Brian Loucks. Lynch then invited her to perform in the film. Lynch refers to this event as "a happy accident."[4][5] Del Rio's emotional rendition of the song inspired the creation and development of the scene itself. In his book, The Impossible David Lynch, writer Todd McGowan describes Del Rio's performance with the phrase "the voice as the impossible object."[6] In the nightclub scene, Del Rio is introduced as "La Llorona de Los Ángeles" (Crying Woman from Los Angeles), who belts out the song in a depressive stupor, only to faint onstage while the song continues playing. Film critic Zina Giannopoulou interprets the song's performance and the (symbolic) death of the singer as a parallel to the relationship between the two female doppelgänger characters, Diane/Betty and Rita/Camilla.[7]
