Celia Cruz was born on October 21, 1925 in Barrio Santos Suarez, in Havana. The "Queen of Salsa" (as she was called from early childhood) began to earn her voice by speaking to tourists.
Her life and colorful career are the subject of a retrospective exhibit at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC.
Celia Cruz career
Celia was passionate about music from an early age. Her first pair of shoes was a gift from a tourist for whom she sang.
The singer's career began as a teenager, when her aunt and cousin took her to a cabaret as a vocalist. Although her father wanted her to become a teacher, the singer followed her heart and chose music instead.
She entered the National Music Conservatory of Havana, where she trained her voice and learned to play the piano.
In the late 1940s, Celia Cruz entered an amateur radio competition. As a result, she managed to attract the attention of influential producers and musicians.
Celia was called as a singer in the dance group Las Mulatas de Fuego, which traveled throughout Latin America. In 1950, she became the lead vocalist of La Sonora Matancera, Cuba's most popular orchestra.
The singer has repeatedly appeared in documentaries related to salsa. She performed throughout Latin America and Europe.
The artist was the highest grossing salsa artist, with over 50 recorded records. Her success is due to the extraordinary combination of a powerful mezzo voice and a unique sense of rhythm.
Celia Cruz in New York
In 1960, Cruz joined the Tito Puente Orchestra. Her bright outfit and charm dramatically expanded the circle of fans.
The group played a major role then in the new sound developing in the 1960s and 1970s, the music based on Cuban and Afro-Latin mixed music that would become known as salsa.
Celia became a US citizen in 1961. Also in 1961, she met Pedro Knight (a trumpeter with an orchestra), with whom she had a contract to perform in Hollywood, California.
In 1962 she married him. Further, in 1965, Pedro decided to put his career on hold in order to manage his wife's career.
As early as 1970, Cruz was as a singer in the Fania All-Stars. She has toured with the group around the world, including dates in London, England, France and Africa.
In 1973, the singer sang in New York's Carnagie Hall as Gracia Divina in Larry Harlow's Latin opera Hommy-A. It was during this time that salsa music was popular in the United States.
During the 1970s, Cruz performed with many other musicians, including Johnny Pacheco and William Anthony Colon.
Cruz recorded an album with Johnny Pacheco in 1974 called Celia & Johnny. One of the tracks of the Quimbera album became an author's song for her.
Criticism
Critic Peter Roughing of The New York Times described the artist's voice in the 1995 performance: "Her voice sounded like it was made of durable material - cast iron."
In a November 1996 review of a performance at Blue Note, Greenwich Village (New York), in which Peter Roughing also wrote for that paper, he noted the singer's use of "rich, metaphorical language".
He added, "It was a virtuosity that is rarely heard when the combination of languages, cultures and eras add up to high intelligence."
Artist Awards
Throughout her career, Celia has recorded over 80 albums and songs, received 23 Gold Records awards and five Grammy awards. She has performed with a wide range of celebrities, including Gloria Estefan, Dionne Warwick, Ismael Rivera and Wyclef Jean.
In 1976, Cruz participated in the documentary Salsa with Dolores del Rio and William Anthony Colon, with whom she recorded three albums in 1977, 1981 and 1987.
The actress also starred in several Hollywood films: The Perez Family and The Mambo Kings. In these films, she managed to capture the attention of the American audience.
Although Celia is one of the few Latina singers with a wide audience in the US, language barriers have prevented her from breaking into the pop charts in the United States.
Unlike many European countries, where people speak several languages, American music is played in the language of this country, so salsa was played for a small amount of time, as it was performed in a language other than English.
Celia has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was awarded the American National Medal of Arts by President Bill Clinton. She also received honorary doctorates from Yale University and the University of Miami.
Cruz vowed never to retire, and she continued to record songs even after she was diagnosed with a brain tumor from which she died in 2003.
Her last album was called Regalo del Alma. The album won a Grammy for Best Salsa/Merengue Album and a Latin Grammy for Best Salsa Album posthumously in 2004.
After her death, hundreds of thousands of Cruz fans went to memorials in Miami and New York, where she was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
