User:Louie Lucchesi/sandbox

Les Vargas
Les Vargas is an enigmatic and mysterious 20th century American pop singer. The bulk of Les’s known stage work was from 1920-1975. He sang his way through vaudeville, the birth of the blues, World War II, the beat generation, swingin’ London, the psychedelic 60’s, glam and punk rock.

In 1920 Les performed on stage for the first time. Overcoming severe stage fright he became a member of a vaudeville revue, singing popular songs of the period. In the early 30’s Les spent time in the south, most notably in Mississippi, where legend has it he was befriended by and worked with Robert Johnson. After spending time in both Memphis and Chicago, Les returned to his hometown of NYC where he earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from Columbia University. He was able to use this degree, along with his ability to speak fluent French, while stationed in Europe during World War II. After the war Les returned to NYC where he went to grad school at Columbia. While there he made acquaintance with a group of bohemian artists that eventually would become known as ‘the beat generation’. Through his travels with his fellow ‘beats’ Les started to spend time in California and eventually moved there to better pursue his singing career. Touring steadily on the west coast Les began to perform in Las Vegas where he was known to carouse with many of America’s best-known singers as well as a group of gangsters that had set up shop there. Some of these connections would eventually become troublesome causing Les to move his base of operations from Los Angeles to London. Returning to NYC after a few years Les became involved in an embarrassing public event that he would later in life refer to as ‘the Ed Sullivan massacre’. Heading back to LA he was rumored to have been involved in the large-scale trafficking of hallucinogenic drugs although this was never proven. Later in his career he was involved in the early days of both glam and punk rock.