Rebekah Del Rio, Singer in Mulholland Drive’s Unforgettable Club Silencio Scene, Dies at 57

Rebekah Del Rio, the songwriter and powerhouse vocalist who sang “Llorando” throughout the unforgettable Club Silencio scene in David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive, has died. Variety confirmed Del Rio’s dying by way of the Los Angeles coroner’s workplace, stating that the artist died on Monday, June 23, at her residence in Los Angeles. A reason behind dying has not but been revealed. Del Rio was 57.

Del Rio’s stirring rendition of “Llorando” is commonly thought-about the emotional crest of Lynch’s 2001 masterpiece, Mulholland Drive. “Llorando”—a Spanish model of Roy Orbison’s operatic ballad “Crying”—seems late within the movie, as Naomi Watts and Laura Harring’s characters sit within the cavernous, crimson-draped Membership Silencio, weeping whereas Del Rio belts the lyrics a cappella. Because the music continues, Del Rio faints on stage, revealing that her charged efficiency was merely an impassioned lip sync.

Rebekah Del Rio, who was of Mexican, Italian, and Sephardic heritage, grew up in San Diego and labored as a rustic singer within the years previous to assembly David Lynch. Roy Orbison’s “Crying” had been a part of her repertoire for the reason that early Nineties, and he or she typically carried out it with out instrumentation. “I’d sing it a cappella as a result of, oftentimes, the band would have a tough time with a few of the chord modifications,” Del Rio advised The Guardian in 2022. She determined to report a Spanish-language model of the music after the 1995 homicide of Tejano pop queen Selena, which devastated Del Rio and the star’s devoted Hispanic fanbase.

Del Rio was residing in Nashville, writing and recording nation western music when she obtained a name from her agent, who wished to introduce her to David Lynch on her subsequent journey to Los Angeles. Throughout a gathering at Lynch’s residence studio, the director requested her to sing “Llorando” on the spot and secretly recorded the impromptu efficiency. Del Rio mirrored on the whirlwind assembly in a 2018 interview, remembering that the entire thing solely lasted the size of “one and a half songs, two cigarettes, a cup of espresso,” and that the director praised her singing with a traditional Lynchism: “David says to me, ‘Ding dang, Rebekah Del Rio, that was aces.’”

In the course of the filming of Mulholland Drive, Lynch requested Del Rio merely to mouth alongside to a backing observe of “Llorando,” however the singer was too dedicated to the bodily expression of singing to faux it. “I say, ‘I can’t do this, I can’t mouth my very own observe. No! You gained’t get the vibrato, I’m singing alongside,’” she recalled in 2018. As a substitute, she sang each take on to Laura Harring and Naomi Watts, so they may expertise it stay through the shoot.