Jorge Drexler: A Uruguayan doctor turned inventive singer-songwriter

Seattle has been lucky lately to have heard Brazilian singer-songwriters Caetano Veloso and Gilberto Gil.

Hard on their heels comes another brilliant South American troubadour, Uruguayan Jorge Drexler, who plays the Neptune Theatre Thursday, Aug. 6.

Drexler had a brief taste of fame in the U.S. in 2005, when he won an Academy Award for his haunting song “Al Otro Lado del Rio (On the Other Side of the River)” from the film “The Motorcycle Diaries,” about Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara.

Otherwise, he not much known in the U.S. But if you have a passing knowledge of Spanish and appreciate witty, creative, urbane songwriting, you might find Drexler to your taste.

He is an unlikely character.

Born in Montevideo, the son of a German Jew who fled the Holocaust in 1939, the 50-year-old singer-songwriter started out as an ear-nose-and-throat doctor, but music was his passion.

While still in practice, Drexler made two albums, recording guitar-and-vocal fare informed by rhythmically lively Uruguayan traditions such as milonga, murga and condombe. In 1995, when Spanish songwriter Joaquin Sabina invited Drexler to Spain to record an album, the Uruguayan went all in for music.

Like Veloso, Drexler began to embed traditional elements into zany electronic landscapes, a gambit that has made him a star through Spanish speaking world. (He has won two Latin Grammy awards and composed for Colombian diva Shakira.)

One of his best efforts in this vein is the 2004 album “Eco,” which had strong U.S. distribution. With playful language full of puns, internal rhymes and dry irony, Drexler takes on the complexities of love, identity, belief and the conundrum of time.

That ethnic identity is one of his prime subjects is no surprise: His father was Jewish, his mother, Christian, and he comes from a family of Europeans who immigrated to the New World, and now himself lives in Spain. The word “border” comes up a lot in his songs.

In “Milonga Del Moro Judio (Milonga of the Jewish Muslim),” he sings, “I don’t know which God is mine,” but asks that you not kill in his name.

“Polvo De Estrellas (Stardust),” with drum machines and crisp keyboards, is inspired by Nicaraguan poet Ernesto Cardenal, who pointed out that we are indeed, “stardust,” as all the elements in space are within us.

“Se va, se va, se fue (Going, Going, Gone)” has lyrics set to a bouncy melody with strings (real, not synthesized ones) by American jazz singer-songwriter Ben Sidran, who happens to be one of Drexler’s good friends.

As a singer, Drexler ranges from a sexy and intense pop tenor croon — he loves the band Radiohead, and covered their song “High and Dry” — to a lower, more raspy and lusty folk whisper.

Three years ago, Drexler was cast in the lead role of a charming and whimsical Daniel Burman film, “La Suerte En Tus Manos (Luck in Your Hands),” which touched on some of Drexler’s themes, such as memory, time and love. In the film, his character is somewhat bemused and vague, yet also devilishly clever.

It will be fascinating to see whether any of that persona comes through at the Neptune.