Cruz Fm Playlist

[Tea Rochlitz]

Her musical legacy is made up of a total of 37 studio albums, as well as numerous live albums and collaborations. Throughout her career, she was awarded numerous prizes and distinctions, including two Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards. In addition to her prolific career in music, Cruz also made several appearances as an actress in movies and telenovelas. Her catchphrase "Azcar!" ("Sugar!") has become one of the most recognizable symbols of salsa music.

rsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso was born on 21 October 1925, at 47 Serrano Street in the Santos Surez neighborhood of Havana, Cuba.[7][8] Her father, Simn Cruz, was a railway stoker, and her mother, Catalina Alfonso Ramos, a housewife who took care of an extended family.[7] Celia was one of the eldest among fourteen children living in the house, including cousins and her three siblings, Dolores, Gladys, and Brbaro,[9][10] and she used to sing cradle songs to put them to sleep.[8] According to her mother, she began singing as a child at 9 or 10 months of age, often in the middle of the night.[8][11] She also sang in school during the Fridays' actos cvicos and in her neighborhood ensemble, Botn de oro.[8]

While growing up in Cuba's diverse 1930s musical climate, Cruz listened to many musicians who influenced her adult career, including Fernando Collazo, Abelardo Barroso, Pablo Quevedo, Antonio Arcao and Arsenio Rodrguez.[3] Despite her father's opposition and the fact that she was Catholic, as a child Cruz learned Santera songs from her neighbor who practiced Santera.[12] Cruz also studied the words to Yoruba songs with colleague Merceditas Valds (an akpwon, a santera singer) from Cuba and later made various recordings of this religious genre, even singing backup for other akpwons like Candita Batista.

As a teenager, her aunt took her and her cousin to cabarets to sing, but her father encouraged her to attend school in the hope she would become a teacher. After high school, she attended the Normal School for Teachers in Havana with the intent of becoming a literature teacher.[13] At the time being a singer was not viewed as an entirely respectable career. However, one of her teachers told her that, as an entertainer, she could earn in one day what most Cuban teachers earned in a month. From 1947, Cruz studied music theory, voice, and piano at Havana's National Conservatory of Music.[14]

One day, her cousin took her to Havana's radio station Radio Garca-Serra, where she became a contestant in the "Hora del t" amateur radio program. It was her first time using a microphone and she sang the tango "Nostalgia" (as a tribute to Paulina lvarez[3]), winning a cake as the first prize for her performance.[8] On other occasions she won silver chains, as well as opportunities to participate in more contests.[15] She also sang in other amateur radio programs such as La suprema corte del arte, broadcast by CMQ, always winning first prize. The only exception was when she competed against Vilma Valle, having to split their earnings: 25 dollars each.[8]

In 2004, the Miami Herald revealed from partially declassified US State Department papers that Cruz had been linked to Cuba's pre-Revolution communist party, the Popular Socialist Party (PSP), as early as the 1940s.[16] The article, promoted as an "exclusive", was written by Miami Herald journalist Carol Rosenberg from Freedom of Information Act requests. It made several revelations. Among them, the US Embassy in Havana denied Cruz a US visa in 1952 and 1955 because of suspected communist affiliations. The article also states that Cruz had joined the youth wing of the PSP at age 20 and had used a concert to arrange a secret meeting with communists in South America on behalf of its then general secretary, Blas Roca Caldero, who has also founded the party in 1925. Cruz had also signed a public letter in support of one of the Party's front groups, the Pro-Peace Congress. The article states that Cruz's surviving husband, Pedro Knight, was asked about this, and is quoted he knew nothing about it. "She never told me about that. She never talked about politics," the article quotes Knight.[17]

Isolina Carrillo was one of the first people to recognize Cruz's ability to sing Afro-Cuban music and asked her to join her Conjunto Siboney, where Olga Guillot also sang.[18] She later joined Orquesta de Ernesto Duarte, Gloria Matancera, Sonora Caracas and Orquesta Anacaona. From 1947, she started to sing in Havana's most popular cabarets: Tropicana, Sans Souci, Bamboo, Topeka, etc.[8] In 1948, Roderico Rodney Neyra founded the group of dancers and singers Las Mulatas de Fuego (The Fiery Mulattas).[19][20][21] Cruz was hired with this group as a singer, reaching great success and making presentations in Mexico and Venezuela, where she made her first recordings. Shortly thereafter, Cruz began to sing on musical programs at Radio Cadena Suaritos, along with a group that performed Santera music under the direction of Obdulio Morales. With this group, known as Coro Yoruba y Tambores Bat, she made several recordings that were later released by Panart.

Cruz's big break came in 1950 when Myrta Silva, the singer with Cuba's Sonora Matancera, returned to her native Puerto Rico. Since they were in need of a new singer, the band decided to give the young Celia Cruz a chance. She auditioned in June, and at the end of July she was asked to join as lead singer,[22] and thus became the group's first black frontwoman.[23] In her first rehearsal with Sonora Matancera, Cruz met her future husband Pedro Knight, who was the band's second trumpeter.

Cruz debuted with the group on 3 August 1950. Initially, Cruz was not received with enthusiasm by the public, but Rogelio Martnez had faith in her. On 15 December 1950, Cruz recorded her first songs with the group, which were a resounding success. Her "musical marriage" with the Sonora Matancera lasted fifteen years. In total Celia recorded 188 songs with the Matancera, including hits such as "Cao cao man picao", "Mata siguaraya", "Burundanga" and "El yerbero moderno". She won her first gold record for "Burundanga", making her first trip to the United States in 1957 to receive the award and to perform at St. Nicholas Arena, New York.[8] During her 15 years with Sonora Matancera, she appeared in cameos in some Mexican films such as Rincn criollo (1950), Una gallega en La Habana (1955) and Amorcito corazn (1961), toured all over Latin America and became a regular at the Tropicana.

Cruz was touring in Mexico when Fidel Castro seized power at the conclusion of the Cuban Revolution. She returned to Cuba to find her hometown of Havana in turmoil and mostly shut down.[24] Cruz was publicly critical of Castro, a stance that she knew would endanger her career and possibly her freedom, since other critics of the regime were regularly arrested. She also needed money to pay for her ailing mother's medical expenses, and when she was offered a contract to perform for a few months at La Terraza Nightclub in Mexico City, she accepted. Cruz left Cuba on July 15, 1960, not knowing that she would never return to her home country.[25]

Just one week after arriving in Mexico, Cruz received the news of the death of her father, Simn Cruz. In 1961, Cruz and Sonora Matancera left Mexico for an engagement in the United States. During this period, Cruz began performing solo without the group, performing at a recital at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.

In 1962, before the refusal of the Cuban government to allow her to return to Cuba, Cruz acquired a house in Fort Lee, New Jersey. Although she tried to return to Cuba to see her sick mother, who was struggling with terminal bladder cancer, the Cuban government denied her request to return.[26] On 7 April 1962, she received the news of the death of her mother Catalina Alfonso. That same year, on 14 July, Cruz was married in civil ceremony with Pedro Knight after a romance of several years. Cruz and Sonora Matancera made their first tour outside of the Americas, visiting Europe and Japan, where they performed with Tito Puente. In 1965, Cruz would culminate a vertiginous fifteen years with the Sonora Matancera. Cruz began a solo career and her husband Pedro Knight decided to leave his position at Sonora Matancera to become her representative, arranger and personal director. During this time, Cruz became an American citizen.

In 1966, Cruz was contacted by Tito Puente to perform with his orchestra. Their first collaborative album, Son con guaguanc featured a recording of Jos Claro Fumero's guaracha "Bemba color", which became one of Cruz's signature songs.[23] Cruz and Puente went on to collaborate on another four albums together. She also recorded albums with other musical directors such as Memo Salamanca, Juan Bruno Tarraza and Lino Fras for Tico Records. In 1974, Fania Records, the leading salsa record label, acquired Tico and signed Cruz to the imprint Vaya Records, where she remained until 1992.

Cruz's association with the Fania label had begun in 1973, when she recorded the lead vocals of "Gracia divina", a song by Larry Harlow which was part of his "Latin opera" Hommy. She then joined the Fania All-Stars, a salsa supergroup featuring the most popular performers of the Fania roster. With them, Cruz first sang "Bemba color" and "Diosa del ritmo" in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1973. She later travelled with the group to Kinshasa, Zaire, in 1974 and returned to San Juan in 1975 for another concert. These live recordings were commercially released years later. Her performance in Zaire, as part of The Rumble in the Jungle event, was included in the film Soul Power.[27]

Cruz recorded her first studio album for Fania in 1974 in collaboration with Johnny Pacheco, the label's founder and musical director. The album, Celia & Johnny, and its lead single, "Quimbara", were both a commercial success. In 1976, she participated in the documentary film Salsa about Latin culture, along with figures like Dolores del Ro and Willie Coln. The following year she recorded her first LP with Coln, a collaboration that would be repeated with great success in 1981 and 1987. When touring with Coln, Cruz wore a flamboyant costume, which included various colored wigs, tight sequined dresses, and very high heels. Her fashion style became so famous that one of them was acquired by the Smithsonian institution.[13] In the late 1970s, she participated in an Eastern Air Lines commercial in Puerto Rico, singing the catchy phrase Esto s es volar! (This is to truly fly!). Cruz also used to sing the identifying spot for WQBA radio station in Miami, formerly known as "La Cubansima": "I am the voice of Cuba, from this land, far away...I am liberty, I am WQBA, the most Cuban!" (Yo soy de Cuba, la voz, desde esta tierra lejana... soy libertad, soy WQBA, Cubansima!).

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