listened to a wide variety of recordings including songs by Chilean musician Victor Jara. As a child, she dreamed of marrying him some day, not knowing he had been killed. At age 13 when her parents separated, Lhasa, her mother and her sisters settled in San Francisco where Lhasa started singing in a Greek cafe. She included Spanish language lessons in her high school studies. After viewing a documentary about Billie Holiday, Lhasa determined that she, too, would make a career in singing. In 1991, she traveled to Montreal, Quebec, Canada to visit her sisters who were students at l'École nationale de cirque, the National Circus School of Canada, and she decided to make Montreal her home. Developing an interest in Francophone culture, she sang for five years in bars, collaborating with rock guitarist Yves Desrosiers. In 1992, Denis Wolff, general manager of the independent Canadian record company, Audiogram, saw Lhasa performing, her head shaved, in front of a tiny nightclub audience. He was struck with "her personality, her charisma and her voice" – he soon signed her to the label. With Desrosiers she developed the material that eventually became her first album. Career Audiogram finished La Llorona in early 1997 with Desrosiers producing, arranging and accompanying. The Spanish-language album mixed 1930s and 1940s-era Latin American songs with original songs; it was strongly influenced by Mexican music but also by klezmer, torch songs, gypsy jazz and Middle Eastern music. Even though she did not consider herself fluent in Spanish, Lhasa said that she enjoyed singing in the language because it came from "a deeper place". Wolff said that he expected the album to be marketed to people other than Spanish speakers because it was so different from contemporary Hispanic music. La Llorona was released first in Quebec on February 4, 1997, then in the US two months later. A music video was shot for one song, "El Desierto", released in May. The album brought Lhasa much success, including the Quebec Félix Award in Canada for "Artiste québécois – musique du monde" ("Best world music artist from Quebec") in 1997 and a Canadian Juno Award for Best Global Artist in 1998. The album was certified Platinum in Canada. By 2003, it had sold 120,000 units in Canada, 330,000 in France, and 30,000 in the U.S. After touring in Europe and North America for several years with Lilith Fair, Lhasa moved to