Juan Gabriel, 66, top-selling Mexican singer-songwriter . By Berenice
Bautista Associated Press . MEXICO CITY - Mexican superstar songwriter
and singer Juan Gabriel died Sunday at his home in California, his
publicist said. He was 66. Juan Gabriel was Mexico's leading
singer-songwriter and top-selling artist, with sales of more than 100
million albums. His ballads about love and heartbreak and bouncy
mariachi tunes became hits throughout Latin America and Spain and with
Spanish speakers in the United States. He brought many adoring fans to
tears as they sang along when he crooned his songs about love and
heartbreak, including his top hits, "Hasta Que Te Conoci" ("Until I Met
You") and "Amor Eterno" ("Eternal Love"). His hit "Querida" ("Dear")
topped Mexico's charts for a year. A flamboyant performer, Juan
Gabriel, whose real name was Alberto Aguilera Valadez, liked to wear
jackets covered in sequins or dress in shiny silk outfits in hot pink,
turquoise blue, or canary yellow, and he was known for tossing his head
before dancing or jumping around the stage. His press office gave no
details on his death. Publicist Arturo de la Mora told the Associated
Press that he died at 11:30 a.m. in his home. Juan Gabriel performed to
packed auditoriums, including New York's Madison Square Garden and the
Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. His last concert was Friday night at the
Forum in Inglewood, Calif. He was scheduled to perform Sunday in El
Paso, Texas. Juan Gabriel broke ground in Mexico in 1990 by becoming
the first commercial singer to present a show at Mexico City's majestic
Palace of Fine Arts, until then a forum reserved for classical
musicians. The proceeds from the three sold-out concerts went to
support the National Symphony Orchestra and became his most celebrated
performances. His album "Juan Gabriel live from the Palace of Fine
Arts" set record sales. A six-time Grammy nominee, he was inducted into
the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and received countless
industry awards, including ASCAP Songwriter of the Year in 1995, the
Latin Recording Academy's Person of the Year 2009, and a star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year. The singer, who was born Jan. 7,
1950, wrote his first song at age 13 and went on to compose more than
1,500 songs. "There are no rules when I compose songs," he said,
according to a biography published by Mexico's Society of Music Authors
and Composers. "There are times when I'm really happy and I write
something really sad, and vice versa. Artists across Latin America and
in the United States covered many of his songs, including Paul Anka and
Marc Anthony, who broke into the salsa music world in the US with Juan
Gabriel's "Hasta Que Te Conoci. Juan Gabriel also wrote and produced
albums for artists such as Mexican singer Lucha Villa and Spain's Rocio
Durcal. The youngest of 10 children, he rose from rags to riches. He
was born in the western state of Michoacan. His father, Gabriel
Aguilera, was a farmer, and his mother, Victoria Valadez, a housewife.
The family lost contact with his father after he was taken to a
psychiatric hospital in Mexico City when Juan Gabriel was a baby.
Unable to support her children, his mother moved the family to the
border city of Ciudad Juarez, where he grew up as she worked as a maid.
Juan Gabriel said his mother was one of the people he most loved in his
life even though he spent most of his childhood away from her. Unable
to care for him, she sent him to an orphanage. He went to school only
until fifth grade after he escaped the orphanage, where he met music
teacher and mentor Juan Contreras. He said his artistic name came from
Contreras and his father. He signed his first record contract in 1971
and had his first big hit with "No tengo dinero" ("I don't have any
money"), according to his biography by Mexico's Society of Music
Authors and Composers.
