Biography of Celia Cruz | Singer.

(La Habana, 1924 - Fort Lee, United States, 2003) Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born in the neighborhood of Santos Suarez in Havana on October 21, 1924, although some sources say his birth four years earlier, and others in 1925, data, all of them difficult to test given the persistent refusal of the star to admit their age.

Second daughter of a Stoker of the railways, Simón Cruz, Catalina Alfonso housewife, Celia Cruz shared her childhood with his three brothers - Dolores, Gladys and Barbarito - and eleven cousins, and their chores included lull with songs from cradle to children; Thus began to sing. His mother, who had a splendid voice, knew how to recognize in it the legacy of that gift when, with eleven or twelve years old, the girl sang for a tourist who, delighted with the performance, bought him a pair of shoes.

With other songs and new outsiders shoed to all the children in the House. Then devoted himself to see the dances and the bands through the windows of the cafes cantantes, and did not see the hour of jumping into the interior. However, only her mother approved of this hobby: his father wanted it to be master, and not without regret tried to satisfy you and to study Magisterium, but could the heart when he was about to finish the race and left to enter the National Conservatory of music.

Meanwhile, Celia Cruz sang and danced in the Havana courtyards and participating in radio programmes for fans, as the hour of tea or the Court Supreme of the air, which obtained first prizes such as a cake or a silver chain, until by their interpretation of the tango nostalgia received payment $15 at Radio Garcia Cerra.

Later she sang in the Sonora Caracas and Gloria Matancera orchestras and formed part of the show the fire mulattoes, who visited Venezuela and Mexico. In 1950 he had already intervened in several radio stations when he joined the cast of the cabaret Tropicana, where the director of the Sonora Matancera, guitarist Rogelio Martínez, discovered it and hired her to replace Mirta Silva, the official soloist for the Orchestra.

Celia Cruz in 1950

Throughout the 1950s the Sonora Matancera and Celia Cruz sparkled in the Cuba of Pío Leyva, Tito Gómez and Barbarito Diez; the inimitable Benny Moré, of the duo Los Compadres, with Compay Primo (Lorenzo Hierrezuelo) and Compay Segundo... The Cuba of Chico O'Farrill and his Sun sun babae, the conga of the Havana Cuban Boys, that of Miguel Matamoros with her Mama, I want to know where are the singers, the by Miguelito Valdes with his Babalu... Celia contributed its Cao Cao peanut Picao and became a success, and another later, Burundanga, took her to New York in April 1957 to pick up his first gold disc.

Celia Cruz had it already won several nicknames and titles with which they wanted to distinguish it. It was the Rumba Queen, the Guarachera East and, since the first tours - in Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia..., the Guarachera de Cuba.

It was the corrupt and noisy Cuba of Fulgencio Batista. When the dictator was forced to take refuge in the Dominican Republic before the triumph of the Castroite, on January 1, 1959, the Orchestra had to walk other ways. According to the singer, since support evil that tell you what and where I had to sing. On July 15, 1960 in the band got permission to perform in Mexico and, once there, partly driven by the worsening of relations between the United States and Cuba, decided not to return.

After a year of applause in the Aztec capital, Celia Cruz moved to United States and sealed their first commitment to act at the Hollywood Palladium. Although he said in those days 'I've abandoned everything he wanted more because I sensed immediately that Fidel Castro wanted to implant a Communist dictatorship', their furious anti-Castro militancy was born later, from April 7, 1962, when he learned of the death of his mother and could not enter the island to attend the funeral. He came to confess even that it was willing to sacrifice is popping a pump if this it had disappeared "Commander».

Three months later, on July 14, 1962, Celia Cruz, married first trumpeter in the Orchestra, Pedro Knight, who from 1965, in which both left the Sonora, became his representative. Celia Cruz began his career as a soloist together with percussionist Tito Puente, with which he recorded eight albums. The Hispanic youth of New York was discovered in 1973 at Carnegie Hall, when it was part of the cast of the «salsopera» Hommy, of Larry Harlow.

Celia Cruz in a 1997 concert

Subsequently, he participated in a legendary concert recorded live at the Yanquee Stadium with The Fania All-Stars, a group composed of leaders of Latino groups that recorded for the Fania label. It was already famous in 1974, when he recorded the album Celia & Johnny with the Dominican flutist Johnny Pacheco, considered the first classic of the genre.

Since then, the success was a constant in hundreds of concerts, echoed by a public delivered their Bemba colorashouting. That electrifying voice, his contagious joy and striking costumes were soon a flag of identity of the immigrants. She, in turn, will finally assume the role of banner of the anti-Castroism.

Celia Cruz in the delivery of the 2000 Grammy

As such, Celia Cruz wanted to also make their mark on the cinema, and participated as an actress - he had already done so several times as singer-in the mambo Kings (1992) and when I left Cuba (1995), because both films reflect stories of the first Cuban exiles, partly close to yours. Although his was unique, and understood this thousands of compatriots who paraded before his remains when he died on 16 July 2003, to the seventy-eight years of age, in Miami and New York, where she received burial.

Also the Cubans on the island, despite the official ban of his music after more than forty years, recognized its value of guarachera universal, the largest musical Ambassador of Cuba. A few days after his death was honored by his colleagues in the gala of the Latin Grammys.

«Sugar!» was his powerful infectious cry, password for opening and closing of its concerts and the key for understanding the world. Hardly anyone has danced more - and he made dance more - than this Cuban of persistent and contagious smile that won adherents from all over more than fifty years of successful experience. Singer of danzones, guarachas and rumbas at its inception, sones, Celia Cruz was always open to new experiences that led her to address other rhythms and join projects in principle risky for a devoted artist.

Thus it became the distinctive image of the sauce with orchestras such as Tito Puente, Willie Colón, Ray Barretto and Johnny Pacheco, and thus came to sing even rock or tango, to join his powerful voice to the of the performers as disparate as Britain's David Byrne, the Azuquita Gypsy Rumba, the Argentine group Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, the Spanish syrup of Palo and Haitian rapper Wyclef Jean as well as improvising duets with her friends Lola Flores and Gloria Estefan, and Dionne Warwick or Patti Labelle.

Sheathed in his lavish and extravagant clothes, touched with impossible wigs and perched on those unique non-existent high-heeled shoes, Celia Cruz retained until almost the last moment an unusual vitality. Happy with your brand-new Grammy for best album of salsa by the black has tumbao, in the summer of 2002 celebrated its 40th anniversary of marriage with a party organized by the singer Lolita Flores in Madrid.

In November, during a concert at the Hippodrome of the Americas from Mexico, D. F., began to lose control of speech. Upon returning to the United States subjected to removal of a brain tumor, but in the end there was no remedy. Even so, on March 13 it appeared last in public when the Latino community put him a tribute in Miami's Jackie Gleason Theatre, which she begged not to be like a farewell. He felt optimistic and with forces. In those days, between February and March, recorded a new album that failed to see edited, you give the soul.

Extracted from the website: Biografías y Vidas