![]() ![]() During the 60s, she also married Pedro Knight, who would go on to be her manager.īy this time, the singer had taken American citizenship. After a successful first tour of America, they then performed in Europe and Japan but, in 1965 and after 15 fruitful years with La Sonora Matancera, Cruz decided the time was right to go solo and left. Now living in exile, Cruz and the group traveled to the US in 1961. The new regime didn’t look kindly on the group’s foreign sojourns and forbade them to return to their motherland. ![]() The Fidel Castro-led communist revolution in Cuba on July 15, 1960, happened while Cruz was out of the country, touring Mexico with La Sonora Matancera. Two years later, she became lead singer of a more significant group, La Sonora Matancera, with whom she recorded a raft of albums, many of which were issued by the Seeco label in the US and helped to carry Celia Cruz’s name beyond her homeland. She also began singing with local orchestras and, in 1948, her first step on the ladder to stardom was joining a troupe of dancers and singers called Las Mulatas De Fuego, with whom she made her first recordings. ![]() Though in her teens she studied to be a teacher, Cruz’s love of singing prompted her to enter Cuba’s National Conservatory Of Music. Cruz then got more serious about performing music and began entering – and winning – radio talent shows in Havana and performing in cabarets. From a poor family, she began singing at an early age, initially urged by her mother to croon lullabies to put her younger siblings to sleep at night. From Cuba To The WorldĬruz was born Úrsula Hilaria Celia De La Caridad Cruz Alfonso in Havana, Cuba on October 21, 1925. Her singing career began in Cuba after the Second World War but took off spectacularly in America during the 60s and 70s, when Latin salsa music became one of the hottest musical currencies in New York. And she cut an arresting sight, too, dressed resplendently in extravagant stage costumes that consisted of eye-grabbing wigs and dazzling sequined frocks that were ablaze with riotous color. Even if her name is unfamiliar, once heard, Cruz’s voice – by turns strident and tender but always brimming with passion and a playful sassiness – is never forgotten. If you’ve ever been to a salsa class, odds are you’ve heard Celia Cruz. ![]()
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