María Isabel Pantoja Martín (Spanish pronunciation: [isaˈβel panˈtoxa]; born August 2, 1956) is a Spanish singer. She was born in the Triana district of Seville, Spain. She has released more than a dozen albums throughout a career spanning many decades, mostly of copla genre, and is known for her distinctive Andalusian style. 　　She was born in a family of musicians. Both her father and her grandfather were singers. 　　Pantoja began performing precociously at the age of seven in the flamenco ensemble of her cousin Chiquetete. At 17 she met her "maestro" Juan Solano Pedrero, who wrote her first hits along with writer and poet Rafael de Leon. Pantoja cultivated copla, a genre in decline at the moment that she popularised again. Some of her early hits were "El Pájaro Verde", "Garlochi" or "El Senorito". In 1983 she released her first pop album, Cambiar por ti, which included the same-title song, "En la Niebla", or "Nada". From that moment, Pantoja alternated ballads and romantic songs with copla. 　　On 30 April 1983 she married bullfighter Francisco Rivera Perez "Paquirri"; the wedding was widely covered by the Spanish media as they were both popular and successful and they embodied a Romantic Spain stereotype of the bullfighter and the "tonadillera". On 26 September 1984 he died in the bullring; Pantoja became known as "Spain's widow" in the media and a regular cover on gossip magazines. After a prolonged hiatus, she released the album Marinero de Luces, composed by José Luis Perales, that sold one million copies in Spain. 　　In 1988, she released Desde Andalucía, an album produced by Mexican singer and songwriter Juan Gabriel. In 1989 she released Se me enamora el alma, her most commercial album, with modern programmed beats, composed by Perales. 　　In 1990, Pantoja starred in the film Yo soy ésa, alongside Jose Coronado and Loles León, directed by Luis Sanz. A year later, she starred in another film, El dia que nací yo, directed by Pedro Olea, alongside Arturo Fernández and Joaquim de Almeida. 　　Pantoja has released more than a dozen albums and has toured Spain and Latin America extensively over the years.