Carmencita Pernett
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11 October 1925
Carmencita Pernett | |
|---|---|
| Also known as | Queen of the Tropics |
| Born | Sidney Pernett Trujillo 11 October 1925 Cartagena, Colombia |
| Died | 22 December 2014 (aged 89) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Genres | Tropical music |
Sidney Pernett Trujillo[a] (1925–2014), known as Carmencita Pernett, was a Colombian singer. Pernett sang with several orchestras in Colombia, and helped to popularise the Colombian musical genres of cumbia and porro in North America. Her 1952 recording of "Me Voy a Plato" with Los Alegres Vallenatos was the first recorded vallenato sung by a woman. She lived much of her life in Mexico, where she was known as the "Queen of the Tropics" (Spanish: Reina del Trópico).
Music career
Pernett was born in Cartagena, in the Colombian department of Bolívar, on 11 October 1925.[1]
Around 1939 Pernett joined the orchestra of José Pianeta Pitalúa as a singer.[2] This made her the first woman in Cartagena to sing porros with an orchestra, at a time when women singing Colombian music styles in public was frowned upon.[3] She also sang with the Emisora Atlántico Jazz Band, led by trombonist Guido Perla, and the Orquesta Emisoras Fuentes, and around the same time she started calling herself Carmencita Pernett.[1] She was later invited by Lucho Bermúdez to join his orchestra.[3]
In 1952, Pernett recorded the son vallenato "Me Voy a Plato" (written by Armando Abello) for the Bogotá-based record label Vergara, backed by Los Alegres Vallenatos, the band founded by Julio Torres Mayorga.[1][4] According to Julio Oñate Martínez, the song was the first recorded vallenato sung by a woman.[1] Pernett later recorded other vallenatos including Alejo Durán's "039" and Tobías Enrique Pumarejo's "Callate Corazón".[5]
Pernett lived in Cuba in 1954, and then moved to Mexico after marrying a Mexican, where she spent the rest of her life and became known as the "Queen of the Tropics" (Spanish: Reina del Trópico).[1][6] In Mexico she sang with the orchestras of Rafael de Paz and Dámaso Pérez Prado, and she helped to popularise the Colombian genres of cumbia and porro in North America.[3][1] Music critic Jaime Monsalve wrote that her Mexican recordings "reveal a different and unique understanding of Colombian Caribbean styles. With closer adherence to the score, and a special emphasis on the wind instruments and solo piano sections, the creations of Pacho Galán, Daniel Lemaitre, and José Barros seem...closer to the cha-cha-chá, mambo, or Cuban guaracha than to cumbia itself, porro, or gaita."[4]: 57
In Mexico, Pernett also sang on film soundtracks, including for the Italian film Anna accompanied by Tony Camargo.[1]
Death
In later life, Pernett had Alzheimer's disease. She died in Mexico City on 22 December 2014.[1]