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On a table at the office of music producer Emilio Estefan, there is a huge stack of magazines bearing pictures of his famous wife Gloria on the cover. There are so many, it’s difficult to leaf through them without sending them toppling to the floor.
Last Wednesday, with her back to the stack, a reflection of her musical hits over the years, singer Gloria Estefan explained to a TV crew from the PBS network why Cuban music is so popular in the United States.
”It’s part of our lives,” she said, then alluding to one of the biggest comedians in the history of American television, also a Cuban, she added: “Look at Desi Arnaz, decades singing in Spanish and he had a following. He was in all the living rooms of America. Cuban sounds have always been part of the flavor of this country.”
Estefan’s remarks in the TV interview, and later in an interview with El Nuevo Herald, provided a rare glimpse into one of the biggest stars from South Florida — one that has kept alive and enhanced the sounds and flavors of Cuban culture in the United States and around the world.
Estefan said the American cultural scene has been enriched by people arriving from multiple countries in the Americas, bringing with them diverse sounds — from a Mexican bolero, a romantic ballad, to an Argentine tango.
Then she added some history about herself.
”My mother was my professor,” she told El Nuevo Herald.
“When I was a child, she sang me lullabies so I’d go to sleep. That’s how it began.”
Born in Havana in 1957, Estefan arrived in Miami with her family two years later — leaving behind a collection of Cuban music that her mother, Gloria Fajardo, had accumulated. It was part of the influence for her latest CD, 90 millas.
”We recovered most of it in a curious way,” she said. Her grandmother shipped old records by singers Celia Cruz, Olga Guillot and others at the bottom of boxes containing stewed fruit.
Another influence was Joselito, a Spanish singer she remembers from her teen years.
”My mother took me to see his movies and that influenced me a lot,” she said.
Two other influences in her life: spanglish, ”which is in my blood,” and the resounding rhythm of her songs.
She has sung before a pope, at the White House, at the opening of the Olympic Games, at the Super Bowl. At the end of last year, she appeared for the first time in the Middle East, performing at a concert in Dubai — where she also attended a film festival with her husband Emilio.
In mid-performance, she surprised her audience by introducing Emily, her 13-year-old daughter — who plays the drums.
”She’s focused on that and she’s very good,” Estefan said. “But she knows she has to study and then decide. I am not going to push her, or prevent her from developing herself. It’s a matter of time.”
Source:miamiherald.com Thanks to GloriaEstefanMexico.com
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