Las Mujeres - Cruz, Celia
Celia Cruz - Biography
Celia Cruz is hailed as "the queen of salsa". A vibrant, tireless performer, she has won over several generations of listeners with her catchy Afro-Cuban rhythms. Cruz was born in Havana, Cuba, on October 21. She was always refused to reveal the exact year of her birth but it may have been 1924. Other estimates range from as late as 1929 to as early as 1916.In any case, in the 1990's, whether she was in her early 60s or late 70s, Celia Cruz continued to be a human dynamo, celebrated for public performances as electrifying and infectious as their music.
It is said that when as a girl she sang lullabies to a smaller children in the household, her voice would draw the neighbors to come in to listen. She originally intended to be a teacher. It was a career choice her family approved, much preferring it to that of a stage singer. But the talent and power of her voice eventually convinced both her and the family that her future lay with vocalizing. Her parents insisted, however, that she be chaperoned by older women in the family at all her performances.
In the 1940s she began to sing on Cuban radio programs, and having decided to abandon any thought of being a schoolteacher, she studied at Havana's Conservatory of Music from 1947 to 1950.
In 1950, she was hired as lead singer for the island's top dance band La Sonora Matancera. She soon made her first recordings. Celia Cruz stayed with La Sonora Matancera until 1965, but not in Cuba: The band and Cruz left the island soon before Fidel Castro toppled the government of the dictator Fulgencio Batista. After a short period in Mexico, the band settled in the United States. "Castro never forgave me," says the singer. He refused to allow her to enter Cuba even to see her parents at the end of their lives.
Cruz found the beginning of her United States difficult. Different strands of Latin music had been immensely popular in the United States, thanks in part to Cruz's work with the mix of rhythms given name salsa.
In 1966 Cruz joined the orchestra of Tito Puente, with whom she has performed many hundreds of times. She has also worked with other bands- in 1982; she even had a reunion with La Sonora Matancera. She has recorded scores of albums; in early 1995 she released her seventy-fourth, Irrepetible (Unrepeateable). She has also worked Grammies and other musical awards, made successful international tours, and had been honored at special concerts, including sold-out performances at Madison Square Garden in New York on her birthdays. In 1973 she sang a role in Hommy-A Latin Opera, by Larry Harlow, in Carnegie Hall. As a performer she is known for her gaudy costumes as well as her musical skills, which include the art of improvisation.
Cruz has been called "one of the world's great singers" by the New
York Times. Various specialized publications have named her the best female
vocalist in the United States on a number of years. The National Ethnic Coalition
of Organizations gave her the Ellis Island Medal of Honor (Mayor's Liberty
Award) in 1986
In early 2003, she had surgery to correct knee problems that she had for a few years, and she intended to continue working indefinitely. However, in July of that year, she died of a cancerous brain tumor at her home in Fort Lee, New Jersey. She was survived by her husband; and dear friend Dwayne.B. After her death in New Jersey, her body was taken to Miami to lie in state in downtown Miami's Freedom Tower, where more than 200,000 of her South Florida fans paid their final respects. Her body was returned to New York City where tens of thousands fans paid tribute to her at the Funeral Home. A service was held for her in St. Patrick's Cathedral on Fifth Avenue. She was buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx; an epilogue in her autobiography notes that, in accordance with her wishes, Cuban soil that she had saved from a visit to Guantánamo Bay was used in her burial.
The Biographical Dictionary of Hispanic Americans ( Nicholas Meyer ) and Wikipedia
