[CNN] Latin music icon Celia Cruz dies (17/07/2003)

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 15:08:50 +0200
Newsgroups: fr.soc.politique
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NEW YORK (CNN) -- Latin music icon Celia Cruz, the "Queen of Salsa," died
Wednesday afternoon after battling cancer, her manager said. She was believed to
be 78 years old.
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/SHOWBIZ/Music/07/16/cruz.obit/index.html
Friends and her manager, Omar Portillo, said she passed away quietly at 5:15
p.m. "I am in a state of complete shock and sadness. This is the end of an era,"
said Aurora Flores, a former writer for Billboard magazine who studies the
Latino music industry.
Known as "The Queen of Salsa," Cruz's influence went well beyond the dance floor
and music studio, as her style, creativity and success established her not only
as an innovative entertainer but also as an ambassador of Latino culture.
She helped reinvent the sound of modern Latin music, with its tropical
background and drumbeats that set-off swift, hip-shaking, swirling and whirling
dance moves for more than half a century.
While she always refused to give her age, close friends estimated Cruz was about
79 at the time of her last performance, a private gathering in March in New
York, according to her publicist Blanca LaSalle.
She had often told reporters she would die on stage, screaming her trademark
catcall "Azucar!" (sugar, in Spanish) to a loving audience. But she spent her
final days at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey, trying to recover from a
December surgery to remove a brain tumor.
In more than five decades of performing, during which she released more than 70
albums and appeared in 10 movies, Cruz scooped up many of music's highest
accolades, including five Grammys and two Latin Grammys.
She also enjoyed major and frequent tributes from outside the music industry,
including honorary doctorates from Yale University, Florida International
University and Miami University; a National Medal of Arts, the United States'
highest honor for an artist; and a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Streets in
New York, Mexico, Costa Rica and Miami, Florida, bear her name.
Clearly, Cruz came a long way from her childhood in Havana, Cuba, when she began
her musical career singing traditional Cuban music on city street corners. In
1950, Cruz replaced the lead singer of the band La Sonora Matancera. It was her
big break, and she became one of Cuba's brightest stars.
After Fidel Castro tightened his grip on Cuba in 1960, La Sonora Matancera went
on a scheduled tour of Mexico; instead of returning to Cuba, the band fled to
the United States. Cruz became a U.S. citizen in 1961 and refused to return to
her homeland as long as the Communist leader remained in power.
In 1962, she married La Sonora Matancera trumpet player Pedro Knight, who would
later serve as her manager and would become a central figure in her music,
inspiring numerous songs about the wonders of a happy marriage. The couple
celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary Monday and Knight was at her side when
she died, her publicist told The Associated Press.
She joined forces stateside with legendary drummer Tito Puente. Together they
helped popularize Latin music for U.S. and European audiences and contributed
significantly to the creation of the Latin music boom known as "salsa."
Besides her work with Puente, Cruz's collaborations with Johnny Pacheco, Willie
Colon, Pete Conde, Ray Barretto, Sonora Poncena and Fania All Stars are
considered Latin music classics.
Cruz remained in the spotlight until late in her life, releasing a high volume
of albums and filling out a frenetic schedule of concerts, large and small. In
her later years, she became a darling of radio disc jockeys at a time when
Spanish-language radio stations in many major cities began beating their
English-language counterparts in ratings.
And Cruz's fame cross cultural boundaries when she began teaming up with popular
American talents such as Patti Labelle, David Byrne and Dionne Warwick.
In a 2002 interview, Cruz told reporters: "My life is singing. I don't plan on
retiring. I plan to die on a stage. I can have a headache but when it's time to
sing and I step on that stage there is no more headache."
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