Bio Full Biography »

In the mid-'90s, Juan Garcia Esquivel enjoyed one of the most unexpected resurgences of popularity -- and hipness -- in the annals of 20th-century pop. The composer and arranger skirted the lines between lounge music, eccentric experimentalism, and stereo sound pioneer in the late '50s and early '60s on a series of albums aimed at the easy listening market. Both cheesy and goofily unpredictable, these records were forgotten by all but thrift-store habitues for decades. With the space age pop/exotica revival of the mid-'90s, however, Esquivel was not just being rediscovered, but was being championed as a cutting-edge innovator by certain segments of the hipper-than-thou alternative crowd. Esquivel (in the manner of Dion or Melanie, he billed himself with a single name) actually enjoyed a long and varied career, of which his space age pop recordings were only a portion. Born in a small Mexican village, the pianist became a popular performer on a Mexican radio station, and studied briefl...