← Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist
Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist
Gloria Estefan: A Journey of Resilience, Rhythm, and Roots
01:02:19
Willie sits down with Gloria Estefan as she returns to her "roots" with her first Spanish-language album in 18 years, "Raices". She also reflects on her extraordinary life story from young Cuban exile to becoming a music icon, and her amazing recovery story in between.
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- [00:00]
A
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- [00:47]
B
Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sit down podcast. My thanks as always for clicking and listening along, man. I am so excited to bring you my this week with an honest to goodness music icon, Gloria Estefan. She has sold more than 100 million albums during her 50 years in music. She's won eight Grammy awards, she's in the Songwriters hall of Fame. I mean, she's got a Presidential Medal of Freedom that she earned in 2015. She's done it all. And for people who maybe weren't around in the 80s and don't fully appreciate what Gloria Estefan and the Miami sound machine her band did with songs like conga 1, 2, 3, the rhythm is Gonna you, they kicked open the door and made Latin music from her native Cuba and Miami, where she spent most of her life, into the mainstream and made it this global phenomenon that it is. And you talk to artists like JLo, Ricky Martin, Shakira, even someone like Bad Bunny, they draw a straight line back to Gloria Estefan, taking that wonderful rhythmic music fused with beats and making it international and making it mainstream. She did all that. So she is a huge figure. There's a reason she's known as the Queen of Latin Pop. She's got a new album out called Races, which translates to Roots, goes back to her Roots. It is her first full length Spanish language release in 18 years. It takes it all the way back to the soul of Latin music and that sound that kind of launched her career. We talk about it all. I mean, her partnership with her husband Emilio Estefan, who she met in 1975 when she was this precocious teenager with a great voice about to go to the University of Miami where she did graduate while singing in this band. They were called the Miami Latin Boys at the time, but couldn't Keep that name with a female out front. So they became the Miami Sound Machine, and the rest is history. Family story is incredible. Coming from Cuba. I'll let her tell you all of that. For now, just sit back, relax, and enjoy this conversation right now in her favorite Cuban restaurant in New York City. This is Gloria Estefan on the Sunday Sit down podcast. Gloria, thank you so much for doing this.
- [03:00]
C
It's my pleasure. You know, I'm a big fan. I told you.
- [03:03]
B
Likewise. Likewise. This has been a long time coming for me. I'm so glad to sit with you, especially in a restaurant that you were just telling me is so very special to you. Going back many, many years?
- [03:14]
C
Yes, actually. Well, we used to come here before 1990, but when I had an accident in March 20th of 1990, I ended up in New York, where they put me back together at the hospital for joint diseases. And I would not eat. I got down to £85 within a matter of a couple of weeks. And the Victor, who, God rest his soul, was here at the time, he would make me a taro root puree, malangita, which is what all Cuban parents feed you or grandparents when you're sick. And he would send chicken and the taro root puree, and it was like home. It really helped. I was able to get a few bites down and little by little got stronger. And we've stayed very close to them through the years. We always come here at some point on every trip.
- [04:03]
B
Maybe that was your little secret to recovery, the puree.
- [04:06]
C
Yeah, I think so. Malangita, malanga puree.
- [04:09]
B
Well, I have to congratulate you already on your new album because you've got a number one hit right out of the gate. Thank you. On three different Billboard charts. How does that feel? You've had a bunch over the years, but here you are again.
- [04:22]
C
Well, it always feels great. You know, you never make music, really. At least we don't make music thinking about charts because that's a big trap or about awards or things like that. But that really tells you that people are loving it. And that's where it really makes a big difference to me. And especially after so many years, because I hadn't recorded an original Spanish album in, like 18 years, something like that. I've done other things. I did the standards. I did the Christmas album with my daughter and grandson. I did Brazil 305 that we won a Latin Grammy for, but it was Brazilian take on my hits. So a couple years ago, Emilio comes up to me with this song, raices the title track. And he knew I was working on the musical Basura with my daughter. We've been working three years and I am in workshops as we speak for this here in New York. And he said, I've got this song. I really want you to be the one to sing it. And I go, babe, you know that I'm doing this thing. I can't now switch and write for that. And he goes, do you trust me? I go, absolutely. He goes, will you let me write some things? And you know, if you like it, you can record it. I had fell in love with Races from the moment I heard it. I thought it was something people needed to hear, especially in these times.
- [05:41]
B
For those who don't speak Spanish, races means roots, which is a lot of what this music is. As you. Your first Spanish speaking album in almost two decades.
- [05:50]
C
Yes.
- [05:51]
B
Why did you want to come back with this kind of album?
- [05:54]
C
It's full circle. I. He didn't even realize, but I told him, babe, it's 50 years I've been doing this. I joined the band in 1975, right out of high school. And he goes, oh my God, I can't believe it's been that long. And the first music I ever sang or listened to was Latin music. Celia Cachao and of course Mi Tierrao was an amazingly successful album for us. I wanted to capture Cuba BC music before Castro, because Cuban music is one of the things that has survived that revolution in different ways. So that was a very concept album with old style arrangements and the greats of Latin music playing on the record with me. So we wanted to kind of do a modern raises. I love singing salsa, I love really rhythmic things. I love finding my way and playing around where my voice can be in different spots because it's so syncopated and gives you so much opportunity to do different things. And then that song talks about the things that are important in life. You know, the people you love, the places you come from, the things that make you who you are, both culturally and emotionally. Emotionally. You know, it says, look at the, look at the sky, look at the stars, they never stop shining and they'll light you in your darkest moments. Like trying to focus on the things that we all share that you don't need money to enjoy and that really enrich us as human beings. And I thought it was an important message to put out.
- [07:33]
B
I was joking with you that, you know, it's a great album because I was listening to it on repeat and I don't speak.
- [07:38]
C
I love it. It's a vibe right It's a vibe, makes you feel something.
- [07:42]
B
That's exactly right. That's what great music can do. And this certainly does it. You mentioned Emilio wrote almost all the songs, right? He did on the album. What is it about your musical partnership that has worked so well, as you said, for 50 years now?
- [07:57]
C
Well, it's funny because him and I could not be more different personality wise. Which works because if we were both like me, we'd be sitting on the couch in our old house playing guitar. And if we were both like him, we'd be dead of heart attacks by now. So it's a n balance. But in the things that really matter, the priorities, family is first, always. We don't differ on business, politics, or music. And both of us, music saved us. He had a band in Cuba, a little band, when he was eight years old, when he and his father went to Spain. When he left Cuba, he was 11, 12 years old, and he told his parents, we need to leave or we're all going to get stuck here. So he ended up going to Spain with his father and they ate in soup kitchens and were sleeping in hostels. And one day he walks by this guy that had an accordion store and he says, if I come in here and like, clean your accordions for you, because that's what he played in Ban in Cuba, will you let me use it, you know, to play? And then he would play at the soup kitchen in these places, People would tip him. When he came to Miami, he did the same thing. He started playing in restaurants for tips with his accordion. On top of working as a male boy at Bacardi and going to school at night, he started building out the band. For me, music was my escape. You know, my dad was very ill. He came from Vietnam with Agent Orange poisoning, and I had started playing. He actually got me started playing. When we were stationed in South Carolina, at Fort Jackson, Columbia, and one of his troops was this star of. Of television. When he was a kid in Cuba, his whole family had been a star. And he. He said, would you give my daughter guitar lessons? Because she sings beautifully. And then I started playing, and music was my escape from every difficult thing. So both of us, music has been a lifeline, and it continues to be. He's doing I don't know how many albums at the same time. I like to focus on one thing, but music is just a beautiful part of our lives, and it never stops being that for us.
- [10:10]
B
It seems joyful too. Right. It doesn't feel like work or business to you when you're working together.
- [10:16]
C
It's joyful. The studio's my favorite place ever. I love the creative side. I kind of had to get used to the performance side because I don't like being the center of attention. Believe it or not, it's not my jam, but I like to do things well. So when I joined the band and I was a frontman, I had to learn to do that. But my favorite thing was the arrangements, being in rehearsals, writing music and creating new sounds and doing things in the studio. And it still is. I still love Like Races. I. I creatively came up with the idea for it, I directed it, I produced it, edit it with my assistant, Heather Beltran, who's my right and left hand, and La Vecina as well. I love that. Creating something that didn't exist before.
- [11:06]
B
Yeah. The videos for the first two singles are beautiful. And they all get at this story of family that you're talking about. And in particular, we see images and videos. But to be able to go back to the place where it all kind of started for you in the United States, that must have been very emotional.
- [11:24]
C
It was very emotional. The second video, Vesina, because I wanted it to be at the place where my mother and I first lived when we came here, where we would see signs that said, no children, no pets, no Cubans. And then my mom finds this little brand new apartment complex, two strips facing each other, four and six apartments. And she told the man, like, my mom was, like, strong in her broken English. She asked the guy if he would allow her to fill all the apartments. And the guy, I guess, goes, absolutely, and it's great. And she invited all her family and friends that their husbands were in Bay of Pigs. So we were all women with small children. We became like a commune. And we lived there for two to three years and lived so many things, both beautiful and difficult. So being there was incredible. And having my family play the little cameo was very special because it's like where I started, and then at the end where we built the stage and it's still between those two apartments. The meaning for me was, yes, this is my life now, but those apartments are still there. That experience is still in here. And everything that I went through with my mom and everything we've lived becomes a part of who you are. And for laces, I'm barefoot in the video. I love nature. And it's kind of like life is a journey. And along that journey, all the things that happened, I brought back to life some pictures. Nice use of AI because I also wanted it to bring it to today's world. And when I saw my mom and dad wave to me that I was.
- [13:04]
B
Able to do that, I thought the same thing. I wasn't ready for that. It was a nice still image. And then they come to life. Oh, my gosh.
- [13:10]
C
When that happened, it was very special. And I went to the most deeply rooted place in Miami, Fairchild Gardens. It's been there for over a century and has Cuban trees and American trees, and it's just very symbolic of my life in Miami.
- [13:27]
B
When you go back to a place like that first apartment, and you were just a toddler, right? You were a very little, very little girl, and you think about how scary that must have been in some ways for your mom and how uncertain things were, and you see that it looks almost the way it did when you arrive there. Does that give you a moment of look where we started and look where I am now?
- [13:49]
C
Absolutely. Which was the whole point. Even though the song itself is funny and there's a lot of humor in it, and it's very rhythmic, the story behind it. And the video is very much about, look. I started in singing in Spanish in that very place because my grandma would smuggle my mom's record collection little by little in boxes of mango baby fruit that she would saddle pilots from Cubana de Aviacion with, and they'd knock on the door and they'd bring it. And I remember my mom playing these records, so I would memorize them and sing them for the ladies there. She would have me perform and perform poems from Jose Marti and all this stuff. So I started singing there. That was the first time I ever sang for other people. And then at the end, I'm on this giant stage with the lighting and the band, and it's. It's. There were a lot of things I was getting flashes through the whole time. Wonderful ones, very difficult ones. I remember we went through Hurricane Dora there, and the following day, a kid in front of us got electrocuted in a puddle because he stepped. His mother tried to grab him, and she got stuck. And then somebody running for a stick, like wood to pry them apart. Like crazy things that have stuck in my brain. And I kind of relived them when I was there, but mostly beautiful. And to look back and say, wow. You know, only in this country, I think, can you really make your dreams come true like that, you know, unfettered and as long as you put in the work and persevere. But we do what we love. It's never felt like work.
- [15:32]
B
You've done all of those things, put in the work, persevered and do what you love and then some. Absolutely. You mentioned that was the first time you had ever sung in Spanish when you were a little girl there. This album is. Is a Spanish language album. I noted that when asked, you often say mitiera is your favorite song or most meaningful anyway. So is there something for you about singing in Spanish that gives it something extra or different or more?
- [16:00]
C
Absolutely. It's my heart language I have. My heart language is Spanish. My brain language is English. Because they wouldn't let me take Spanish in school, I knew too much of it. So I studied French. But in Spanish, it's impossible to be too sweet, too passionate in English. You have to be a little more restrained in your emotion for it not to be saccharine. I've learned through the years and they're both incredibly important to me. Like, I wouldn't choose one over the other, but when I'm singing in Spanish, it's. It's. It's my heart, like pouring out. Not that English isn't, but English is more cerebral for me. And it's still fun and it's still wonderful and I still love to write in English. My only song that I wrote completely because I threw some things here and there in Vecina. I wrote all the ad libs. I thought it was so funny and then to be able to contribute. But I wrote a song for my grandson that I did not write thinking of this album. I wrote it simply because we had been together in our beach home in Vero beach, him and I. And he left and I missed him so much. And I was inspired. I knew one day I would, because I've written for everybody close to me, a song at least, sometimes many more. And I called him on the phone and I played it for him, my beautiful boy. And he loved it, you know, they were crying, my son, my daughter in law and him. And when Emilio came to me with this idea, with the album, and I thought, you know what? I want to do Sasha's song in the vibe of the album, but I have to write it in Spanish. People have to know what I'm singing. And there's two tracks that are included in English, that are English versions of Spanish tracks on there.
- [17:44]
B
It's pretty cool to have a grandma who, when she's thinking about you, writes a hit song that's not bad, that's forever.
- [17:51]
C
He was very happy about it, you know. I wrote my son's song, naive Song, that was on the album after that accident I wrote along came you for Emily. And Emilio's got a plethora of songs I've written for him. He's so funny, you know, on this album, he comes in, he goes, okay, I wrote this love song for you. And I go, you're gonna sing it on the album. Cause he's got a beautiful voice, but it's not his bag. And he goes, no, no, you're gonna sing it for me. I go, so you wrote your own love song? I go, babe, that's so you. Not that. I don't mean every word. It's called Como Paso. It's. Oh my God, he's too funny.
- [18:32]
B
He wrote himself a love song. That's amazing.
- [18:34]
C
And he knew that I was gonna sing it for him, so he wrote it. I actually, every word I would have written, I have written in other songs.
- [18:42]
B
That is pretty bold, Emilio. Pretty bold. Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit down podcast. Stick around to hear more from Gloria Estefan right after the break.
- [18:54]
A
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- [20:07]
B
Welcome back. Now more of my conversation with Gloria Estefan. Thinking about your own roots and you touched on this a minute ago. But coming From Havana at 2 years old, I love that you have the Pan Am ticket still, right? It was supposed to be a round trip ticket. You fully expected to return home and did not.
- [20:26]
C
Absolutely.
- [20:27]
B
You're too young to remember a lot about that. Time. But can you talk about how that experience and having to basically flee your home country for good, how that has informed the rest of your life and your music? Of course.
- [20:41]
C
Absolutely. I also have my dad's ticket from Cuba to Key west on the ferry, because he came ahead of us. He told my mom, I need to get you out of the country. This is gonna get really bad. And she didn't wanna leave without him. And he says, I'm gonna go ahead and I'm gonna try to find a job and try to find a place to live. And the poor thing, he got here and he thought that he'd snagged a job for $50 a week. And my mom goes, are you sure? He goes, yeah. They said 15. It was $15 a week parking cars. And then, of course, he didn't tell my mom because it was very secret, but they were planning the Bay of Pigs thing already. And he left. Charnod disappeared, went into training. We ended up, I think it was in Guatemala that they were training. And then he came back the night before they went to Cuba and told her, here's phone number of a doctor in case you need it for Glorita. And you're going to be getting $150 a month from the. A check from the US government. I can't tell you where I'm going or what I'm going to do. So what I remember from that time my mom and I left Cuba on a Pan Am flight. They only let us take one suitcase. And I remember. I have. Sometimes those memories are more vivid because they. They're so traumatic. I remember that I fell in the airport and hit my head. And when we got to Miami, I was, like, crying incessantly. My mom thought I had a concussion. Turns out it was an ear infection. But I remember when a man, like, rifling through my mom's stuff, and then he took out her diploma and ripped it up. She had a PhD in education from Cuba. And he told her, you're not taking your education with you. That was a flash in Cuba, I have a flash. My dad was jailed immediately after the coup because he was a police officer. And him and his dad, who was a commander, were jailed. And we used to visit him in jail. And they would. You'd have to stand in long lines. They'd strip search and, you know, touch the women. It was my grandma, my mom and I, and Camilo Cienfuego, one of the three architects of the revolution, was the one policing El Principe, where my dad was And I start like any kid. I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty. And he pulls this little metal cup off the wall that was hanging on a nail and puts water in it and gives it to me. And my mom's going like, no, no, she'll be fine. He goes, oh, this isn't good enough for you? Whatever. And he goes, gives it to me, and drink it. And I got the worst infection in my mouth that to this day, they used to treat it with some violet something. I don't. I can't have violet. The taste is horrendous. And then in Miami, Adel Quartelito. Just being dragged from rosary to rosary, church to church. My mom and her ladies speaking well into the night to, like, you know, wee hours of the morning. Sometimes I would be laying on my mom's chest, and I still remember the feeling of hearing her talking to all of them through her chest. And the warm feeling it gave me to have my mom right there. I didn't even want to be inside in my bed. I wanted to be on her. And I remember knowing that my dad was in jail, but thinking that she didn't know because she was trying to tell me that he was on a farm. So I would keep up the charade. Both of us thought that we were fooling each other, But I knew where my dad was. I was precocious, and I was hearing everything.