Jorge Drexler

Jorge Drexler

Jorge Drexler is a singer-songwriter from Montevideo, Uruguay, whose work is associated with Latin and Latin ballad styles. He begins recording in the early 1990s and studies medicine, training as an otolaryngologist like his parents before turning to music.

Early life and background

He is born in Montevideo in 1964 and comes from a Jewish family that flees persecution in Germany. He later settles in Spain.

Recording career

Drexler makes his full-length album debut with La Luz Que Sabe Robar in 1992, followed by Radar in 1994. In 1995, at the invitation of Joaquín Sabina, he goes to Spain, where Sabina helps him navigate the Madrid music scene and secure an international recording contract.

After choosing to remain in Madrid, he records Vaivén with Spanish musicians, reworking material from his first two albums and adding new songs. It is released internationally in 1996 and becomes the first of four albums he issues on Virgin España. The other albums from this period are Llueve (1998), Frontera (1999), and Sea (2001).

Breakthrough and later albums

The strongest tracks from Vaivén and its three follow-up albums are later gathered on the compilation La Edad Del Cielo in 2004. His mainstream breakthrough comes with Eco in 2004, his seventh album, after moving to Dro Atlántic. The album includes “Al Otro Lado Del Río,” which wins an Oscar and is featured over the closing credits of Walter Salles’s The Motorcycle Diaries. Eco is later reissued with bonus material as Eco².

Subsequent albums include 12 Segundos de Oscuridad (2006), the live double album Cara B (2008), and Amar la Trama (2010).