Celia Cruz, Petite Powerhouse of Latin Music, Dies at 77

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 06:58:21 GMT
Newsgroups: soc.culture.cuba
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July 17, 2003
Celia Cruz, Petite Powerhouse of Latin Music, Dies at 77
By JON PARELES
elia Cruz, the Cuban singer who became the queen of Latin music, died
yesterday at her home in Fort Lee, N.J. She was 77.
The cause was complications after surgery for a brain tumor, said a
spokeswoman, Blanca Lasalle.
Onstage, Ms. Cruz was a petite woman who wore tight, glittering dresses and
towering wigs, dancing in high heels and belting songs that she punctuated
with shouts of "Azucar!" ("Sugar!"). She was a vocal powerhouse, with a
tough, raspy voice that could ride the percussive attack of a rumba or bring
hard-won emotion to a lovelorn Cuban son.
"When people hear me sing," she said in an interview with The New York
Times, "I want them to be happy, happy, happy. I don't want them thinking
about when there's not any money, or when there's fighting at home. My
message is always felicidad - happiness."
In a career that began in the 1940's, Ms. Cruz sang with every major Latin
bandleader and recorded more than 70 albums. She sang a full spectrum of
Afro-Cuban music, from the religious chants of santería to mambos and
cha-chas to modern salsa. Yet unlike many of the Latin musicians in her
wake, she didn't court a crossover audience. She recorded in Spanish,
modestly saying that her English was not good enough.
Ms. Cruz was born in Havana to a poor family, and she regularly sang her
brothers and sisters to sleep. She won a radio talent contest after a cousin
took her to the radio station García Serra; first prize was a cake. She went
on to study at the Havana Conservatory and to sing on radio programs. In
1950, she joined La Sonora Matancera, Cuba's most popular band. "I wanted to
be a mother, a teacher and a housewife," she told The New York Times. "But
when I began to sing with La Sonora Matancera, I thought, `This is my
chance, and I'm going to do it.' "
She toured with the group constantly, sometimes singing five sets a day;
they were also headliners at Havana's most celebrated nightclub, the
Tropicana, and performed on radio and television. But in 1960, a year after
Fidel Castro took power in Cuba, she was touring Mexico with La Sonora
Matancera and decided not to return to Cuba. Years later, Cuba refused
permission for her to attend her father's funeral.
Ms. Cruz moved to New York in 1961, and later to Fort Lee. In 1962, she
married Pedro Knight, a trumpeter from La Sonora Matancera who became her
musical director and manager. He survives her, along with two sisters,
Gladys Becquer and Dolores Cruz.
In New York, she held on to her Cuban roots while adding some of the city's
Puerto Rican and later Dominican elements to her music. She sang with Tito
Puente's orchestra in the 1960's, a collaboration she periodically renewed
through the next decades, and in the 1970's she also sang with bandleaders
like Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colón and Ray Barretto. She performed with the
Fania All-Stars at Yankee Stadium in 1975.
"Women are afraid to sing salsa," she once said. "I don't know why. Maybe
they think it's for men." She added, "But I think everybody can sing
everything."
She continued to modernize her music, working with Miami-based producers
like Willy Chirino and Emilio Estefan and with Sergio George in New York,
who produced her most recent albums. She also collaborated with many of the
musicians who admired her, among them Luciano Pavarotti, Gloria Estefan,
David Byrne of Talking Heads and the Brazilian songwriter Caetano Veloso.
In 1989, Ms. Cruz won a Grammy award for best tropical Latin performance for
an album in collaboration with Mr. Barretto, "Ritmo en el Corazón." In 1989,
Yale University awarded Ms. Cruz an honorary doctorate (alongside Stephen
Hawking), and in 1990 the main street of Little Havana in Miami, Calle Ocho,
added the name Celia Cruz Way. In 1994, President Clinton gave her the
National Medal of Arts. She won the first Latin Grammy Award for best
tropical album in 2000. Until last year, Ms. Cruz continued to perform and
record constantly on an international circuit that included jazz festivals
and arena concerts along with Latin clubs.
She had surgery for a brain tumor in December 2002, but in February she
returned to the studio to record an album, "Regalo de Alma," that is due for
release Aug. 5 on Sony Discos. That same month, her 2002 album, "La Negra
Tiene Tumbao," won the Grammy Award for best salsa album. In March, the
Telemundo network broadcast a live concert tribute to Ms. Cruz, in which she
performed alongside other Latin stars, including Marc Anthony, to raise
money for the Celia Cruz Foundation for Hispanic students to study music. It
will give its first five grants on her birthday this year, Oct. 21.
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