Tito Guizar
The first Spanish-speaking singing cowboy on the big screen in Hollywood, Tito Guizar was Mexico's answer to Gene Autry, and rated highly enough to make movies alongside Roy Rogers. In Mexico, however, he was an even bigger star, attracting legions of young women in a manner akin to Frank Sinatra, and later becoming virtually a media institution as a film and television star and songwriter as well as singer. Born Federico Arturo Guizar Tolentino to a conservative Catholic family in Guadalajara, he studied singing over the objections of his father. In 1929, at the age of 20, with his rich, pleasing tenor voice, good looks, and haunting eyes, Guizar (who went by the stage name Tito) came to the attention of Emilio Azcarraga Vidaurreta, a Mexican media mogul who sent him to New York to record. His repertory for those sessions was composed by a neophyte songwriter named Agustin Lara, who became one of Mexico's most popular composers of the '30s and '40s. Those recordings were successful, and Guizar spent the next six years in New York, performing in private clubs and on his own Spanish radio show, Tito Guizar and His Guitar, which gave him massive exposure. He took his singing very seriously and continued training his voice, studying with several opera coaches, but Guizar's first love, ahead of opera, was the cowboy (or ranchera) songs of the Mexican cattle state Jalisco. He made his life in the city, marrying singer Carmen Noriega in 1932 in New York. Guizar was sufficiently in demand in the mid-'30s to merit performances at Carnegie Hall, where he insisted on mixing operatic repertory in the first half with Mexican cowboy ballads.
He made his screen debut as a specialty act in the 1935 Fox Studios film Under the Pampas Moon, which starred Warner Baxter and which was notable as the screen debut of Rita Cansino aka Rita Hayworth. Guizar might've found a small niche as a specialty musical act in movies, but for a happy accident that occurred a year later, when he returned to Mexico to star in a movie (Alla en el Rancho Grande aka Out There on the Big Ranch) -- intended for the Mexican film market, it was a hit south of the border, but it also found an audience in the United States, returning unexpected grosses in Spanish-language theaters on the American side of the border. Indeed, it became the first Mexican western to find reasonably wide distribution in the United States. Guizar saw an opportunity and took advantage of it, learning English well enough to work in American movies. He came to Hollywood in 1937, appearing in the Paramount feature The Big Broadcast of 1938 (notable as Bob Hope's screen debut). Early the next year, he appeared in Tropic Holiday, and early the next year, Guizar graduated to starring roles with St. Louis Blues aka Best of the Blues. He followed this with starring roles in The Llano Kid in 1939 for Paramount, and a key supporting part in Blondie Goes Latin at Columbia (1941). Guizar's popularity exploded during the early '40s as he became even more active in Hollywood. By 1945, he had been signed by Republic Pictures, where Gene Autry and Roy Rogers had both become stars, as the studio's latest singing cowboy. He starred first in vehicles of his own such as Mexicana (1945) -- playing a role reflecting his real-life status, as "the Frank Sinatra of Mexico" (in the words of film scholar Leslie Halliwell) --a vehicle aimed at both the American and Mexican markets. Guizar later worked alongside of Rogers in On the Old Spanish Trail (1947) and The Gay Ranchero, sharing star billing with the studio's biggest screen attraction. Between his Mexican and American screen careers, Guizar estimated that he had made more than 50 movies over a period of nearly 30 years, and subsequently found a second acting career on television in Mexico on Mari Mar and other night-time soap operas. In 1990, Guizar made a recording comeback with help from producer Jose Escamilla. Guizar became a major star on television during the final 15 years of his life, but to listeners with long memories, he was associated with some of the most popular versions of songs such as "Alla en El Rancho Grande," "Cielito Lindo," "Maria Elena," "Guadalajara," and "Jalisco," as well as "South of the Border" and "What a Difference a Day Makes." He also occasionally wrote songs, some of which appeared on the soundtracks of his movies. At the time of his death at the end of 1999, Guizar was among the last of the movies' singing cowboys and the last surviving singing star whose career dated to the '20s.
© Bruce Eder /TiVo
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Estrellas De Méjico
Trio Los Panchos, Tito Guizar, Luis Pérez Meza
World - Released by Fania on Feb 9, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dos Grandes de Antes
World - Released by Preludio Soluciones on Sep 20, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage México Nº 81 - EPs Collectors "Las Mañanitas" (Cumpleaños Felíz)
Latin America - Released by Vintage Music on Nov 23, 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Amores de Ayer y Otros Éxitos de Tito Guízar
World - Released by Aquellas Canciones Records on Jan 6, 1981
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage México Nº 91 - EPs Collectors "El Alegre Ranchero" "Uy, Uy, Uy Mariposa"
Latin America - Released by Vintage Music on Apr 23, 1958
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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El Primer Charro Cantor
World - Released by Custom Recording Studio on Sep 1, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage México Nº28- EPs Collectors "El Alegre Ranchero"
Latin America - Released by Vintage Music on Aug 21, 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Grandes Voces del Ayer, Vol. 5
Napoleon Dihmes, Tito Guizar, Luis Mariano
Miscellaneous - Released by Pueblo Viejo on May 29, 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage México Nº31 - EPs Collectors
Latin America - Released by Vintage Music on Apr 2, 1957
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage México No. 144 - EP: Mi Pueblito Natal
World - Released by Vintage Music on Apr 28, 1956
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Vintage Music No. 86 - LP: Tito Guizar
Latin America - Released by Vintage Music on May 8, 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rancheras Originales
World - Released by MSM Agency, Inc. on Oct 6, 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Recordando a Tito Guízar
Latin America - Released by RCA Records Label on Jul 20, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Guadalajara (1954 - 1958)
Latin America - Released by Phorminx on Feb 23, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Allá en el rancho grande
World - Released by YOYO USA, Inc. on Oct 31, 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
La Malagueña
Latin America - Released by AIRES DE MEXICO on Dec 16, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Adios Mariquita Linda (1955 - 1958)
Latin America - Released by Phorminx on Feb 6, 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Chapultepec
Tito Guizar, Mariachi Güitrón
Bolero - Released by Latin Central Records on Jan 1, 1948
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo