Gloria Estefan

In 1975 Gloria met keyboardist Emilio Estefan, a sales manager for the rum dealer Bacardi who also led a band called the Miami Latin Boys. The band played popular Latin music, but because there was no lead singer, the quartet members took turns singing. A mutual friend asked Emilio to advise Gloria and some friends about organizing a band for a special event. Emilio heard Gloria sing, and when he met her again at a wedding at which the Miami Latin Boys were entertaining, he asked her to sit in with the band. A few weeks later Emilio asked Gloria to perform as lead singer with the band, and she accepted.

At first Gloria sang only on weekends, because she was still attending the University of Miami. A year and a half after Gloria joined the group, by then renamed the Miami Sound Machine, the band recorded its first album for a local label. Renacer was a collection of disco pop and original ballads sung in Spanish.

After several months on a professional level, Emilio and Gloria’s professional relationship turned personal, and in September 1978, they were married. Their son Nayib was born two years later, about the time that Emilio quit his job at Bacardi to work full-time with the band, then made up of bassist Marcos Avila, drummer Kiki Garcia, keyboardist, arranger, and saxophonist Raul Murciano, keyboardist Emilio, and soprano Gloria.

By 1980 the group had signed a contract with Discos CBS International, the Miami-based Hispanic division of CBS Records. Between 1981 and 1983 the Miami Sound Machine recorded four Spanish-language albums made up of ballads, disco, pop, and sambas.

The Miami Sound Machine’s first North American hit was from the band’s first English album, Eyes of Innocence. The disco single ‘Dr. Beat’ went to the top of the European dance charts. The song’s popularity prompted CBS to move the group to Epic, a parent label, and inspired group members to write songs in English, first with a couple of numbers on the otherwise Spanish-language record Conga. The rousing dance number ‘Conga’ itself became the first single to crack Billboard’s pop, dance, black, and Latin charts simultaneously.

In 1986 the album Primitive Love, the band’s first recording entirely in English, set off a string of hit singles. ‘Bad Boys’ and ‘Words Get in the Way’ made their way onto Billboard’s Top 10 pop chart.

Estefan gradually became the star attraction, and the act came to be billed as Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine or sometimes simply Gloria Estefan.

After the Let It Loose album, Galdo and friends quit working with the Miami Sound Machine, so the band was on its own creatively. Early in its evolution, the band’s biggest hits were rousing dance numbers, but by the end of the 1980s it was Estefan’s ballads that engendered its success. From the Let It Loose album the singles ‘Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,’ ‘Betcha Say That,’ and ‘1-2-3’ made it to Billboard’s Top 10 list, but it was the ballad ‘Anything For You’ that topped the charts.

Despite the group’s popularity with English-speaking listeners, the Estefans have not forgotten their roots. There are always Spanish-language projects in the works, and the title of their 1989 album Cuts Both Ways attests to their intention to live up to their international reputation.

Emilio Estefan relinquished his position as keyboardist with the Miami Sound Machine after the birth of son, Nayib. He then devoted his considerable energy and managerial talent to promoting the band and the other enterprises that were to eventually make the Estefans producers of their own and others’ records.

While traveling together on March 20, 1990, the band’s bus was involved in an accident with a tractor-trailer on snowy Interstate 380 near the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. Nayib suffered a fractured shoulder and Emilio received minor head and hand injuries, while Gloria suffered a broken vertebra in her back. In a four-hour operation several days later, surgeons realigned Estefan’s spine and implanted steel rods to buttress the fracture. With a prognosis for complete recovery doubtful, Estefan retired to her home on Star Island, near Miami, to begin her long recovery.
She marked her return to performing with an appearance on television’s American Music Awards in January of 1991, and beginning in March, she launched a year-long tour to tout her comeback album Into the Light.

During the next four years Gloria released four albums and embarked on a world tour. The albums alternated in style from Latin to pop. After recording the platinum album Destiny in 1996, Gloria began a high-tech world tour called Evolution.

In 1998 Gloria continued to combine pop, dance and Latin rhythms in her 12th album, gloria!. She also performed on the VH-1 concert special, Divas Live along with Celine Dion, Aretha Franklin, Shania Twain, and others. The concert raised money to fund music education in elementary schools. Inclusion in this event affirmed her position among the top female singers in the music industry.

Ever the musical superstar, Estefan continues to make albums and to perform for her fans. In recent years, Estefan has found another outlet for her creative talents. She wrote two picture books for children: The Magically Mysterious Adventures of Noelle the Bulldog (2005) and Noelle’s Treasure Tale (2006).

On September 18, 2007, singer Gloria Estefan released 90 Millas, a tribute to the music of her native Cuba, which featured a collaboration with musician Carlos Santana. It was her 29th album overall, her eleventh studio solo album and her fourth in Spanish. The album landed Estefan at No. 11 on the Latin Female Artist of the Year chart in 2007.