Gloria! In The Highest.
Gloria Estefan’s new album is winning awards, but she promises fans she’ll perform plenty of their favorite old hits in concert Saturday, her first here in 12 years
By Chad Pata
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Gloria Estefan Has A Surprise For Her Honolulu Fans, Her Multi-Talented Teen Daughter Emily
Despite the success of her most recent album 90 Millas - it won two Latin Grammys in November - Gloria Estefan’s show this Saturday at Blaisdell Arena will be more a retrospective of her career than a promotion of her future.
“We’ll do a couple cuts off the new album,” says Estefan, who will be performing on Oahu for the first time in 12 years. “But quite honestly, at this point in my career and just as a music lover, when I go to see someone in concert I want to hear the stuff that I remember them for, ‘cause we are kind of like the soundtrack to people’s lives. I want to make sure that people leave happy and fulfilled on what they wanted to hear.”
Accompanying her onstage will be more than a dozen musicians, most of them from the original Miami Sound Machine that made her so famous in the mid-1980s, and a special guest, Emily Estefan, Gloria’s 14-year-old daughter.
“I hate to brag, but she is really a monster; she can really play,” says Estefan of her youngest, who received rave reviews during Estefan’s European tour. “She plays piano, guitar and drums. I don’t want to blow the surprise, but I think you will really be blown away by her. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
Emily’s talent should come as a surprise to no one, as music has always been a family affair for the Estefans. Emilio Estefan, Gloria’s husband of 30 years, is considered the godfather of the Latin music scene and has produced such acts as Shakira and Ricky Martin.
It was his band originally in the ‘70s, then known as Miami Latin Boys, but they were in need of a lead singer. Enter Gloria and the entire Miami music landscape was changed forever.
They were married in 1978, and the name of the band was changed to the Miami Sound Machine. They tore through the ‘80s with hits like Get on Your Feet, Conga, Rhythm Is Gonna Get You and The Words Get in the Way.
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The future looked bright until a tragic accident in March 1990 when their tour bus was hit by a jack-knifed semi that crashed into the back of their bus where Gloria was sleeping.
The impact broke her back, leading to the insertion of two titanium rods to stabilize her vertebrae, and two months of physical therapy. But she persevered and was back out touring a year later.
The accident brought Gloria back to her roots, recording Mi Tierra, an album that utilized Cuban beats and sold almost 3 million copies worldwide. Through it all Emilio was by her side as a musician, producer and husband.
“It has worked well for us, or else things would have gotten hairy there,” Estefan says with a laugh. “At the beginning, it was a little tough to figure out where the manager ended and the husband began. You know, I could-n’t go home and complain about my manager to my husband.
“But there was no real complaining. He’s fantastic, an amazing human being. He gets things done, and that’s why so many artists like to work with him - he makes things easy. He takes their creativity, their fortes, and he just makes it happen.”
Though Estefan has continued to release Spanish albums, she had not returned to her Cuban roots until the release of 90 Millas. Named after the 90 miles that separates her current home in Florida from Cuba, she collaborated on the album with dozens of Latin music’s biggest names over the past two years.
Legendary bassist Israel Cachao Lopez, the inventor of mambo, celebrated his 80th year in the business by adding some bass lines to the album, which turned out to be his last recorded work before he passed early last year.
Also contributing were guitar gods Carlos Santana and Jose Feliciano.
“Everybody has their own way of working,” says Estefan. “When Feliciano came into the studio, he was playing on a cut before we had actually finished writing the song, so that he could be instrumental in shaping the direction. Feliciano came in and started riffing, and we changed the melody of the single based on what he was doing.
“Santana, on the other hand, wanted me to have already sung the song, because he wanted it to be a dialogue between the vocal and his guitar. It was really a phenomenal experience, and he really tried to portray emotionally on that guitar what I was singing about. He is really one of my heroes.”
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