http://www.elgringomusica.com/bio.html
---------------------------------------------------------------
EL GRINGO As the early morning sun starts to rise over his family's ranch near El Paso, El Gringo has already been working for several hours alongside with the Mexican "vaqueros". Norteno music is blaring from their pickup trucks, and El Gringo asks one of the vaqueros to translate the Spanish lyrics to him. The song is "La Puerta Negra", and little by little El Gringo starts to learn Spanish.
(before becoming known as El Gringo, he was Shawn Kiehne. His first musical success was when he entered a high school talent contest on a dare, and ended up winning 1st place!)

El Gringo started getting offers to sing in country music bands, and even ended up winning many talent contest including garnering 2nd Place in the Nashville Star southwest regionals held in Albuquerque.

A few years later El Gringo lived for a while in Culiacan, Sinaloa Mexico where he studied Spanish and became immersed in the Mexican culture and way of life. While in Sinaloa he also studied the Norteno style of music and began to venture into writing and singing songs in Spanish, finding his own unique style that he has today.

In 2005, El Gringo competed in the regional finals for El Gigante de Manana TV show by Univision and won 2nd place out of 123 contestants in El Paso, Texas.

In early 2006, El Gringo travels to Monterrey, Mexico looking to capture that authentic Norteno sound for his songs, and he began recording with respected producer/manager Roberto Gallardo and his team.

El Gringo is the first Anglo-American to write and sing songs in the Norteno genre. With one of his songs already selected to be in a movie by Sony Pictures, El Gringo's star is rising quickly over the Latin music horizon!