Marta Gomez

This Colombian singer got her biggest break when the song "La Ronda" from her 2003 release Solo Es Vivir was chosen to open the Putumayo compilation Women of Latin America. But the constantly gigging singer hadn't exactly been wasting her time before that. She'd shared stages with Toto La Mompasina, Mercedes Sosa and Bonnie Raitt, among others, and graduated from the Berklee College of Music magna cum laude. As an artist, Gomez doesn't specialize, she synthesizes, adapting folkloric traditions ranging from Peru's lando to Argentina 's zumba into her sweet, jazz-inflected compositions. She detoured into Americana to cover "The Circle" for The Pilgrim: A Celebration Of Kris Kristofferson.