Women in Jazz and Blues: Eydie Gorme• Rosie Flores• Gabrilele Bojorquez

May’s Cinco de Mayo holiday is the celebration of the unlikely victory, in 1862, of the small Mexican army against the French forces in the Battle of Puebla under General Ignacio Zaragoza. It was a temporary success but a symbolic one, as the French installed Maximillion the First as emperor. He was later captured and executed in 1867. However, some say it prevented the French, under Napoleon III, from aiding the Confederacy in the American Civil War. It is not the Mexican Independence Day (which is September 16th), but rather a celebration of Mexican heritage. Some criticize the celebration in California, as being commercialized by the beer and liquor companies, with an emphasis on margaritas, rather than other aspects of Mexican heritage, including Mariachi music and baile folklorica. It is not a Mexican national holiday but rather a celebration of solidarity against foreign intervention. My profiles this month include three women with strong ties to Mexican culture.  

Eydie Gorme, 1928-2013

Eydie Gorme

I was always under the impression that the very popular pop, jazz, and Latin singer Eydie Gorme was of Mexican heritage. One of my very favorite periods of her career was her performances and recordings with Trio Los Panchos. Two of the founders of the trio (Alfredo G. and Chucho Navarro) were Mexican, and the third (Hernando Aviles) was from Puerto Rico. They met in 1944 in NYC and became one of the leading exporters of the bolero and the romantic ballad in all Latin America. They began recording with Eydie Gorme in 1964 with the album Amor and recorded three more albums after that. She was of Judeo-Spanish descent. Her father was from Sicily and her mother was from Turkey. They were Sephardic Jews and spoke Spanish and Ladino (a form of Old Spanish and Hebrew spoken by Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492, under Queen Isabella). They emmigrated to NYC and Eydie was born in 1928. She graduated from high school and began singing in bands while working as an interpreter. Eventually, she met her future husband, Steve Lawrence, and they formed a very beloved and popular duo. I can remember loving them and seeing them on the Ed Sullivan Show in the ’50s and ’60s.

Steve Lawrence and his wife Eydie Gorme arrive at a black-tie gala called honoring Frank Sinatra in Las Vegas on May 30, 1998. Photo: Lennox-McLendon.

For those of you who are too young to remember this show, it began at the advent of the television era and ran from 1948-1970. It was something many families watched together on Sunday nights. Programming was not very extensive then. My father was the first one on the block to have a TV, in about 1951. Ed Sullivan was a television host who had a knack for spotting talent. He featured a variety show that included Steve and Eydie, Broadway stars, comedians like Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, Carol Burnett, and Joan Rivers, as well as jugglers and pie pan twirlers, and many other popular cultural acts. As rock ‘n’ roll began taking over, he added Elvis Presley (a scandalous show at the time, which would only show him from the waist up!), Motown performers, and eventually the Beatles. After a 23-year run, he was considered passe. His show definitely harkened back to the old Vaudeville days. Not only was he the first person to book black talent, he also ignited the careers of many celebrities, including Jackie Wilson, Stevie Wonder, and the Temptations, as well as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, the Supremes, and Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Eydie with Trio Los Ponchos, 1964.

Eydie Gorme had the foresight to hook up with Trio Los Panchos in 1964, when the Beatles invaded pop culture in the U.S. She had managed to continue her pop and jazz career, really through the advent of early rock ‘n’ roll. 1950s American culture was still rooted in rather sappy/saccharine music (for example Patti Page’s big hit “How Much is that Doggy in the Window?,” while jazz was getting wilder (bebop), and rock was rapidly expanding. The Viet Nam protest movement was just around the corner. But she carved out a very successful place for herself. She was a major nightclub entertainer all over the U.S., as a solo act and with her husband, Steve Lawrence, from the ’50s to the ’70s, consistently scoring in the pop charts, with a parallel place in the Latin pop field with Trio Los Panchos. She got a Grammy nomination for “Blame It on the Bossa Nova.” She died in Las Vegas at the age of 84.

Rosie Flores, 1950–

Rosie Flores. Photo by Rodney Bursiel.

Many of us in San Diego know Rosie Flores because she lived here from the age of 11, having moved from San Antonio, Texas, and she started playing music professionally right out of high school. Her first band was an all-women’s rock trio called Penelope’s Children. They immediately began touring back to Texas. So, deemed “the chick with the pick,” she has continued since with a number of bands, both as a side person and as a leader herself. I remember hearing her name in the ’70s, where she led the band Rosie & the Screamers. We started bumping into each other after that, every few years—I hired her to play in a small feminist coffee house in Golden Hill, called Wing Cafe, which I booked with Kathy Najimy. She resurrected Penelope’s Children for that around 1982.

Rosie and the Screamin’ Sirens, 1984.

Some people call Rosie a musical chameleon. She absorbed the California sounds: surf guitar, country and country rock, blues, rockabilly-flavored garage rock, all of which are roots-based styles. She relocated to Los Angeles and formed an all-women’s punk band called the Screamin’ Sirens and recorded an album, Fiesta, in 1984. In 1987, she recorded her first solo album, and in 1992, her second. These albums featured original songs by Flores, her guitar leads, and a variety of L.A. veterans. She spent 1994 playing lead guitar in Butch Hancock’s band.Rosie has always been very supportive of female musicians and, in 1995, recorded a tribute album to two of her rockabilly heroes, Wanda Jackson and Janis Martin. She brought them out of retirement for the project. She and Wanda, who hadn’t played nightclubs in 20 years, toured cross country that year. Wanda, called the Queen of Rockabilly in the ’50s, continued to tour by herself, and I was fortunate to see her here in San Diego at Tio Leo’s. I also saw Rosie with Janis Martin (called the Female Elvis in the ’50s), and Wanda at the Belly Up Tavern.

Rosie (second from left) with Candye Kane and Sue Palmer (others unknown).

Rosie has continued collaborating with country and blues artists as she bounced back and forth between Los Angeles, Nashville, and Austin, absorbing the sounds of artists in those cities. In 2006, she was honored with a day named after her in Austin (August 31). In 1997, she played with Asleep at the Wheel, featuring Ray Benson on vocals and Cindy Cashdollar on pedal steel (see Sue’s Spotlight from December 2025: https://sandiegotroubadour.com/women-in-blues-jazz-marcia-ball-cindy-cashdollar-carline-ray/). Tapping her Mexican heritage, she became the first Latina to crack the billboard chart. She formed a trio called Las Super Tejanas, celebrating the talents of Latina Texas women: Rosie on guitar and vocals, Tish Hinojosa on guitar and vocals, la accordeonista Eva Ibarra, and also singer Shelly Lares. They were also accompanied by the Las Madrugadoras Mariachi Trio.

Rosie is still actively touring today. I saw her recently at the Cordova Bar in San Diego. She remembered me from my Candye Kane beehive hairdo days. We were frequently on the same tours in Europe during the ’90s.

Rosie in 2023

Rosie has been honored with many prestigious awards. In 2024, the National Endowment for the Arts presented her with the N.E.A. National Fellowship Award, the highest form of recognition for the folk and traditional arts, by the U.S. government. She has appeared at the Kennedy Center, as well as the White House. In 2007, she won a Peabody Award for her narration of the NPR rockabilly documentary, Whole Lotta Shakin’. She currently has a new album out, Simple Case of the Blues, featuring songs by Wilson Pickett, Roy Brown, and her own originals. When not on tour, she has regular gigs in Austin with the Blue Moon Jazz Quartet as well as the Rhythm Rockers.

Gabriele Bojorquez, circa 1995-

Gabriele Bojorquez. Photo by Leve Gonzalez.

I first heard Gabriele Bojorquez at Dizzy’s, in San Diego, as presented by Chuck Perrin. She was doing a show that put a spotlight on Eydie Gorme songs, which Eydie had recorded when she was working with Trio Los Panchos. (See first musician in this segment.). Since I was a big fan of Eydie, especially with this well-known Mexican group, I wanted to see the show. I became a fan of Gabriele’s immediately. I was also able to see her once in Tijuana and once in La Jolla. I think she is in her late 30s, but I couldn’t find enough biographical information. She started singing in 1998. According to the Mexican publication Diario de Quéretaro, she’s had a career spanning 27 years. Last year she released an album of all originals, called Vestido de Canto, fusing Latin rhythms, such as huapango, jarocho, rancheras, cumbia, and rhumba with genres such as blues and bossa nova. She has eight albums under her belt and 450 concerts. She can accompany herself on guitar, but her main instrument is her voice.

I know she performs in Tijuana (at the Praga Cafe, on 5^th and Revolucion) and also in Tecate. I think she lives in the vicinity, or at least somewhere in Baja California. She has a beautiful voice and is well worth checking out.

Some other Latina musicians include: Laura Chavez (see Sue’s Spotlight from last month: https://sandiegotroubadour.com/women-in-blues-and-jazz-laura-chavez-holly-hofmann-giselle-anguizola/and the article in this issue), Linda Ronstadt, Gabby Moreno, Rosie Mendez Hamlin (pioneering lead singer of Rosie & the Originals of “Earth Angel” fame, from National City), Shakira, Gloria Estevan, Celia Cruz, Selena, Sheila E, Tres Ellas (L.A.-based vocal/instrumental trio), and many more.

HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO, EVERYONE!!!!!