Born Ursula Hilaria Celia Caridad Cruz Alfonso in Havana, Cuba on October 21, 1925, Celia (pronounced SELL - yah) Cruz recorded more than 70 albums. She was a multiple winner of Grammies. Cruz was called "La Reina de la Salsa" or "The Queen of Salsa."
She was a star years before the term salsa was widely used. According to her 2004 (posthumously published) autobiography Celia: My Life, her path to international superstardom began in 1947, when she won a singing contest at a radio show called La Hora del Te or Tea Time. (One source, citing the liner notes of two of her albums, says that she won the contest in1935.) After winning that contest, she entered others. Sometimes she won and sometimes she lost.
La Sonora Matancera
Late in the 1940s, states her autobiography, she was part of a local band called El Boton de Oro, or the Golden Button. She also studied music at the Academia Municipal de Musica or the Havana Music Academy. In the early 1950s, she starred in the hit Cuban stage show Sun Sun Ba Bae. She also sang at the famed Tropicana nightspot.
In August 1950 she began singing with the influential La Sonora Matancera, a group of accomplished musicians that had been formed in the 1920s. The Sonora Matancera had a weekly radio program. Also in 1950, a recording of her performance of "Cao Cao Mani Picao" with the ensemble on the radio was released as a single.
She was with Sonora Matancera for 15 years, and made many recordings with the orchestra. Pedro Knight was one of its trumpeters. He and Cruz fell in love. They married in July 1962. They had no children.
In 1957 she performed in the United Stated for the first time when she was invited to New York on the strength of her hit record "Burundanga". Eventually she became a New York resident. Later she lived in New Jersey.
Exile in the U. S.
Cruz came to the United States in 1960 as an exile from Fidel Castro's Cuba. In that year, Sonora Matanera had gone to the United States to play concerts. But the ensemble never returned to Cuba. By then, Cruz was a seasoned popular singer who had performed in Latin countries, including Cuba, Mexico, Venezuela and Colombia. Her idol was Cuban singer Paulina Alvarez, who had performed with the Orquestra Atonio Romeu in the 1920s.
In her autobiogropahy, she attributed some of her success to the fact that in every performance she included something for all lovers of Latin music. For example, she might include a bomba for Puerto Ricans, a guaracha for Cubans and a merengue for Dominicans.
A vibrant performer, Cruz liked to move with the music as she sang. She dressed with flair. She was still performing live in her 70s. She was outspoken in her lifelong loathing of the Castro regime. She proudly called herself a black woman. Her skin was darker than that of most of the female singers who succeeded in the business.
Musicians She Worked With
Cruz made recordings with Tito Puente, Johnny Pacheo, Ray Barretto, Willie Colon and others. In her autobiography she said that "rhythm and melody" are what made her want to record a song. She won her first Grammy (awarded by The Recording Academy) in 1989 for the album Ritmo en el Corazon.
In 2002 she won another Grammy for the album La Negra Tiene Tumbao, which also won a Latin Grammy (awarded by The Latin Academy of Recording Artists) in the Best Salsa Album category. In 2004 she won a Grammy posthumously for the album Regalo del Alma, which also won a Latin Grammy in the Best Salsa Album category.
More Grammies
She won her first Latin Grammy in 2000, the year of the first Latin Grammy awards ceremony. She won in the best Salsa Performance category for Celia Cruz and Friends: A Night of Salsa. In 2001 she won a Latin Grammy in the Traditional Tropical Album category for Siempre Vivre. She recorded her albums in Spanish, the language she was most comfortable with.
Her career got a lift in the 1970s when her record label Tico came under the direction of the influential American salsa label Fania. Young speakers of Spanish were taking more pride in Latin music, especially the music now called salsa. And Cruz performed at Carnegie Hall in 1973 as part of the re-creation of the record label's cast album of Hommy: A Latin Opera, a reworking of The Who's Tommy: A Rock Opera. Larry Harlow of Fania had created Hommy.
Cruz Will Be Honored With a Stamp
In 1992 she played Evangelina Montoya, a club owner, in the film The Mambo Kings, starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante.
Over the years, her repertory included standards for the Cuban exile community. She sang "Guantanamera," a song credited to Jose Fernandez Diaz, and based in part on a poem by the poet Jose Marti. Likewise, many exiled Cubans enjoyed her cover of "Cuando Sali de Cuba" ("When I Left Cuba"), written by Luis Aguile and considered the national anthem of Cuban exiles.
Cruz died in Fort Lee, New Jersey on July 16, 2003. On March 16, 2011 she will be one the five musicians honored when the USPS (United States Postal Service) issues its Latin Music Legends stamp.
Sources:
Cruz, Celia With Ana Cristina Reymundo. Celia: My Life. New York: Rayo. 2004.
"La Guarachera Celia Cruz." www.guarachera.com. Accessed 22 February 2011.
Linda N. Riggins - I have written freelance articles for Victorian Homes,Catholic Digest, the Old Farmer's Almanac, Fine Homebuilding, the Christian Science ...
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