
Two Decades After Her Death, Celia Cruz Lives On for Her Fans
Celia Cruz reigned for decades as the 'Queen of Salsa,' with her signature shout of '¡Azúúúcar!' expressing in Spanish her music's brand of joy and optimism. Twenty-two years after her death, the Cuban powerhouse singer still captivates her fans.
The petite woman with a raspy voice wore tight, glittering dresses and colorful wigs and danced in high heels while singing her hit Spanish-language songs such as 'La negra tiene tumbao' and 'Ríe y llora.'
Born Oct. 21, 1925, Ms. Cruz began her career in Cuba in 1940 and continued it in exile, producing more than 70 international albums and winning multiple Grammy Awards and Latin Grammys.
She moved to New York in 1961, and brought her musical Cuban roots and mixed them with Puerto Rican and later Dominican rhythms, helping to usher the birth of salsa as a popular Latino genre in the United States.
'When people hear me sing,' she said in an interview with The New York Times in 1985, 'I want them to be happy, happy, happy. I don't want them thinking about when there's not any money, or when there's fighting at home. My message is always 'felicidad' — happiness.'
Ms. Cruz died in 2003 at her longtime home in Fort Lee, N.J., from complications after a surgery for a brain tumor. She was 77. Following a tour of her coffin in Miami, masses of fans honored her at a public viewing in New York City.
More than two decades later, her message still resonates, and she remains relevant in what would have been her birth's centennial this year. She has remained specially visible in Miami, where many Cuban exiles and their children revere her, and the sound of bongo drums are heard in private and public celebrations.
'I see Celia Cruz not only as a legendary performer but as an enduring symbol of cultural memory, resilience and diasporic pride,' Karen S. Veloz, a Cuban American music professor at Florida International University in Miami, said in an interview. 'She stands as a cultural icon whose music traverses generations, political borders and languages.'
And beyond Miami, Ms. Cruz has maintained a digital audience too, with more than 6 million monthly listeners on Spotify and her official YouTube channel garnering about 493,000 subscribers.
Here are some of the different ways that the grande dame of salsa, also referred to simply as Celia by her fans, has been honored recently.
The Celia Bobblehead
For a home baseball game on May 14, the Miami Marlins gave away 8,000 bobbleheads of Celia Cruz as part of the organization's annual Cuban Heritage Day. The doll featured a smiling Ms. Cruz holding a microphone and wearing a blue ruffled dress. As part of the ticket package, the team sold commemorative baseball jerseys with her image that were designed by a Miami artist known as Disem305.
The team also hosted Lucrecia, a Celia Cruz tribute singer, who threw the ceremonial first pitch and performed her songs.
A New Mural in Miami
Artwork in the Little Havana neighborhood of Miami captures Ms. Cruz's incandescent smile and her joie de vivre, with two portraits set to a backdrop in teal and pink.
'As an artist and a huge salsa and Celia Cruz fan, this is a huge honor for me,' its creator, Disem305, said of the mural, which measures 11-feet high and 45-feet wide.
'On the right side of the wall, there's a younger Celia with the Freedom Tower standing tall behind her to represent the Cuban community here in Miami,' he said, referring to the Miami landmark where many Cuban refugees arrived in the 1960s and '70s. 'On the left side, there's a portrait of an older, more mature Celia — the one that comes to mind when most of us hear her name — with her huge, contagious smile.'
He said he was commissioned by the Marlins to design the mural and the commemorative jersey.
A Commemorative Coin
Ms. Cruz became the first Afro-Latina to appear on American quarters as part of the 2024 U.S. Mint's American Woman Quarters collection, which honored a diverse group of notable American women in a variety of fields.
The U.S. Mint described Ms. Cruz as a 'cultural icon, and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century.'
The quarter's tail shows her dazzling smile as she performs in a rumba-style dress. '¡Azúcar!' — which means 'Sugar!' — is inscribed on the right.
A Posthumous Award
In April, Ms. Cruz was posthumously honored with a 'Legend Award' at the Billboard Latin Women in Music gala in Miami.
A montage highlighted her early days in Cuba as she broke gender barriers in a male-dominated industry, eventually elevating Afro-Cuban sounds on global stages.
'Celia Cruz made her life a carnival with a voice that seemed out of this world,' the singer Joya said on the show.
The Puerto Rican performers Ivy Queen, La India and Olga Tañón paid tribute to Ms. Cruz by singing a medley of her songs.
'¡Qué viva la reina!' La India shouted to the audience and viewers.
Celia on Exhibit
From January to February, the Museum of Art and Design at Miami Dade College celebrated the singer with the exhibit 'Celia Cruz: Work.'
The exhibit, which included videos, posters and Ms. Cruz's wigs and gowns, drew more than 400 people to the Hialeah campus, museum officials said.
Pinecrest Gardens, a lush botanical oasis south of Miami, also remembered Ms. Cruz in January with a celebration that included a concert series featuring musicians.
As part of the reopening after restoration of the Freedom Tower, which is operated by Miami Dade College, officials will host a Freedom Tower Family Day on Oct. 11 for visitors 'to experience Celia's story' through readings, art activities and performances.
'She is not only a global icon,' María Carla Chicuén, a college spokeswoman, said in a statement, 'but a cherished figure in Miami, whose life and legacy are deeply intertwined with the history of the Freedom Tower.'

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CNN
21 hours ago
- CNN
Brian Wilson, music icon and creative force behind The Beach Boys, dead 82
Brian Wilson, cofounder of The Beach Boys and the creative force behind the group's surf sound, orchestral arrangements and perfect harmonies, has died, his family announced on Wednesday. He was 82. 'We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,' his family wrote in the statement shared on Instagram and his official website. 'We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world.' CNN has reached out to representatives for Wilson for comment. Wilson's life was marked just as much by struggles of substance abuse and mental illness as it was by repeated comebacks, remarkable talent and timeless songs that still echo across the country, decades after their release. His story, by all accounts, is one of resilience. Despite a childhood scarred by his father's abuse, becoming partially deaf, and the years of haunting voices in his head from schizoaffective disorder, the two-time Grammy Award winner went on to become the 'reigning king of pop melody,' as the Denver Post once put it, often bringing to life songs that told a much different tale than his own reality. 'That is probably why I wrote those happy songs. I try to get as close to paradise as I can,' Wilson told The New York Times Magazine in 2004. Over the decades, many have revered his genius. 'I don't think you'd be out of line comparing him to Beethoven,' Tom Petty once said. In 2001, CNN credited Wilson as the creator of 'some of history's most intricately woven pop songs.' 'He managed to both distill a simplicity of human emotion out of his songs and yet, do something that's so artistically complex and beautiful,' musician Don Was once marveled about Wilson during an interview. Rolling Stone magazine in 2023 named Wilson one of the 200 greatest singers of all time. In The Beach Boys, Wilson found a family that accepted his perfectionism and eccentricity – he did, after all, install a giant beach sand box under his piano for inspiration. And later, as a solo artist, he revisited and released the one project he couldn't fulfill while in the group: the SMiLE album that Wilson called a 'teenage symphony to God' and looked back on as his greatest accomplishment. The oldest of three brothers, Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California. His love for music began early, but so did the abuse from his father, who, during bouts of rage and depression, would beat Wilson with a belt or take out his artificial eyeball (he'd lost an eye in an industrial accident) and make Wilson look at the empty space. Wilson used music to escape, and his life was always shaped by the melodies around him – with some of his greatest influences including the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, George Gershwin and, at one time, the Beatles. In 1961, Wilson wrote his first original melody in 'Surfer Girl,' according to the biography on his official website. The same year, Wilson and cousin Mike Love wrote 'Surfin,' recording the song with Wilson's brothers, Dennis, and Carl, and friend Al Jardine – and soon after becoming known as the Beach Boys. The song was included in the group's 1962 debut album, 'Surfin Safari.' But the high demands of a relentless industry proved too much and in late December 1964, Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown and stopped touring, becoming a full-time studio artist for the better part of more than a decade after that. 'I probably had a little too much too soon,' he speculated to CNN's Larry King in 2004. It would mark the beginning of his experience with depression, which Wilson said never really went away. (Even in 2019, Wilson postponed a tour and said that he had been feeling 'mentally insecure' at the time and was grappling 'with stuff in my head.') Wilson went on to compose, arrange and produce the legendary 'Pet Sounds' album alongside songwriter Tony Asher, with a single goal in mind: to create the 'greatest rock album ever made.' It was released May 16, 1966. The 13-track album, which now holds the No. 2 spot on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the '500 Greatest Albums of All Time,' has become the group's landmark record. Paul McCartney – who Wilson has referred to as one of his heroes – once called the record 'unbeatable in many ways.' The voices in Bryan's head – and a resurrection While bringing to life many of the band's iconic songs, Wilson was also plunging deep into his personal hell, taking drugs including hashish, amphetamines and LSD. It was a sort of self-medication, he had said. 'It's called 'nepenthe,'' he told King in 2004. 'Alcohol and morphine – nepenthe means numbing the soul,' he said, referring to a fictional antidote for sorrow mentioned in Ancient Greek literature. Wilson continued to spiral, at times spending days in bed. Around age 25, he began hearing voices: awful ones he desperately tried to tune out, which at times threatened to harm him. It was a symptom of schizoaffective disorder, Wilson said. 'Every few minutes the voices say something derogatory to me,' he told Ability Magazine in 2006. The only antidote for those proved to be singing, writing and being around his family, Wilson said. Wilson and his first wife, singer Marilyn Rovell, were divorced in 1979 after about 15 years of marriage. He met his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, in a car dealership in 1986, when she sold him a Cadillac. He released his first solo album – 'Brian Wilson' – in 1988. His wife, Melinda, called that time the 'Landy years' — a reference to the domineering therapist hired to help Wilson but who instead, according to the musician, overmedicated him, controlled him and banned communication with his friends or family, Wilson and Melinda told King in the 2004 interview. (After a 1991 settlement, Landy was banned from having any contact with the artist.) Wilson married Melinda in 1995. He pointed to her as a critical backbone and support system during his struggles, and the one who helped him take his life back. After her death, Wilson called her his 'savior.' In 2004, came a stunning resurrection: more than 35 years since its inception, Wilson revisited the 'SMiLE' project and with the help of lyricist Van Dyke Parks and band member Darian Sahanaja, performed the entire finished album at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He released the 'Brian Wilson Presents Smile' album in September 2004. Wilson has called it his 'biggest accomplishment ever.' 'I get the impression that Brian knew he was running out of time and if he was going to present the work he'd have to make a decision to do it and no longer be embarrassed that he had followed his own madness as a 24-year-old composer,' Parks told The New York Times at the time. In May 2024, after his wife Melinda died, a judge ruled to place Wilson under a conservatorship, to which the musician agreed to. Court documents said Wilson had a 'major neurocognitive disorder' and was unable to care for himself, CNN reported. In Wilson's mind, The Beach Boys – as the world knew them – broke up in 1998, after Carl Wilson died of lung cancer. Dennis Wilson died in 1983 in a swimming accident. For all the sorrow and internal battles that haunted his life, Wilson never forgot about the things that made him happy: his wife, his children and music, above all else. 'They're the light of my life. Nothing brings joy into my life like my children,' Wilson told Ability Magazine in 2006. 'My children and my music are my two greatest loves.' In his interview with the magazine, Wilson said he had found ways to overcome the darkest days of his mental health conditions with the help of medication and regular visits with a psychiatrist. On what gets him through the day, he said: 'I walk five miles a day in the morning, I eat really good food, I get a little sleep at night—four or five hours, sometimes six if I'm lucky—and I use my love with people. I use love as a way to get along with people.' And when the going got tougher, he said he got through it with his willpower – which he, fittingly, called 'Wilson Power.' CNN's Todd Leopold contributed to this report.

CNN
21 hours ago
- CNN
Brian Wilson, music icon and creative force behind The Beach Boys, dead 82
Brian Wilson, cofounder of The Beach Boys and the creative force behind the group's surf sound, orchestral arrangements and perfect harmonies, has died, his family announced on Wednesday. He was 82. 'We are heartbroken to announce that our beloved father Brian Wilson has passed away,' his family wrote in the statement shared on Instagram and his official website. 'We are at a loss for words right now. Please respect our privacy at this time as our family is grieving. We realize that we are sharing our grief with the world.' CNN has reached out to representatives for Wilson for comment. Wilson's life was marked just as much by struggles of substance abuse and mental illness as it was by repeated comebacks, remarkable talent and timeless songs that still echo across the country, decades after their release. His story, by all accounts, is one of resilience. Despite a childhood scarred by his father's abuse, becoming partially deaf, and the years of haunting voices in his head from schizoaffective disorder, the two-time Grammy Award winner went on to become the 'reigning king of pop melody,' as the Denver Post once put it, often bringing to life songs that told a much different tale than his own reality. 'That is probably why I wrote those happy songs. I try to get as close to paradise as I can,' Wilson told The New York Times Magazine in 2004. Over the decades, many have revered his genius. 'I don't think you'd be out of line comparing him to Beethoven,' Tom Petty once said. In 2001, CNN credited Wilson as the creator of 'some of history's most intricately woven pop songs.' 'He managed to both distill a simplicity of human emotion out of his songs and yet, do something that's so artistically complex and beautiful,' musician Don Was once marveled about Wilson during an interview. Rolling Stone magazine in 2023 named Wilson one of the 200 greatest singers of all time. In The Beach Boys, Wilson found a family that accepted his perfectionism and eccentricity – he did, after all, install a giant beach sand box under his piano for inspiration. And later, as a solo artist, he revisited and released the one project he couldn't fulfill while in the group: the SMiLE album that Wilson called a 'teenage symphony to God' and looked back on as his greatest accomplishment. The oldest of three brothers, Wilson was born on June 20, 1942, in Inglewood, California. His love for music began early, but so did the abuse from his father, who, during bouts of rage and depression, would beat Wilson with a belt or take out his artificial eyeball (he'd lost an eye in an industrial accident) and make Wilson look at the empty space. Wilson used music to escape, and his life was always shaped by the melodies around him – with some of his greatest influences including the Four Freshmen, Phil Spector, George Gershwin and, at one time, the Beatles. In 1961, Wilson wrote his first original melody in 'Surfer Girl,' according to the biography on his official website. The same year, Wilson and cousin Mike Love wrote 'Surfin,' recording the song with Wilson's brothers, Dennis, and Carl, and friend Al Jardine – and soon after becoming known as the Beach Boys. The song was included in the group's 1962 debut album, 'Surfin Safari.' But the high demands of a relentless industry proved too much and in late December 1964, Wilson suffered a nervous breakdown and stopped touring, becoming a full-time studio artist for the better part of more than a decade after that. 'I probably had a little too much too soon,' he speculated to CNN's Larry King in 2004. It would mark the beginning of his experience with depression, which Wilson said never really went away. (Even in 2019, Wilson postponed a tour and said that he had been feeling 'mentally insecure' at the time and was grappling 'with stuff in my head.') Wilson went on to compose, arrange and produce the legendary 'Pet Sounds' album alongside songwriter Tony Asher, with a single goal in mind: to create the 'greatest rock album ever made.' It was released May 16, 1966. The 13-track album, which now holds the No. 2 spot on Rolling Stone's 2021 list of the '500 Greatest Albums of All Time,' has become the group's landmark record. Paul McCartney – who Wilson has referred to as one of his heroes – once called the record 'unbeatable in many ways.' The voices in Bryan's head – and a resurrection While bringing to life many of the band's iconic songs, Wilson was also plunging deep into his personal hell, taking drugs including hashish, amphetamines and LSD. It was a sort of self-medication, he had said. 'It's called 'nepenthe,'' he told King in 2004. 'Alcohol and morphine – nepenthe means numbing the soul,' he said, referring to a fictional antidote for sorrow mentioned in Ancient Greek literature. Wilson continued to spiral, at times spending days in bed. Around age 25, he began hearing voices: awful ones he desperately tried to tune out, which at times threatened to harm him. It was a symptom of schizoaffective disorder, Wilson said. 'Every few minutes the voices say something derogatory to me,' he told Ability Magazine in 2006. The only antidote for those proved to be singing, writing and being around his family, Wilson said. Wilson and his first wife, singer Marilyn Rovell, were divorced in 1979 after about 15 years of marriage. He met his second wife, Melinda Ledbetter, in a car dealership in 1986, when she sold him a Cadillac. He released his first solo album – 'Brian Wilson' – in 1988. His wife, Melinda, called that time the 'Landy years' — a reference to the domineering therapist hired to help Wilson but who instead, according to the musician, overmedicated him, controlled him and banned communication with his friends or family, Wilson and Melinda told King in the 2004 interview. (After a 1991 settlement, Landy was banned from having any contact with the artist.) Wilson married Melinda in 1995. He pointed to her as a critical backbone and support system during his struggles, and the one who helped him take his life back. After her death, Wilson called her his 'savior.' In 2004, came a stunning resurrection: more than 35 years since its inception, Wilson revisited the 'SMiLE' project and with the help of lyricist Van Dyke Parks and band member Darian Sahanaja, performed the entire finished album at the Royal Festival Hall in London. He released the 'Brian Wilson Presents Smile' album in September 2004. Wilson has called it his 'biggest accomplishment ever.' 'I get the impression that Brian knew he was running out of time and if he was going to present the work he'd have to make a decision to do it and no longer be embarrassed that he had followed his own madness as a 24-year-old composer,' Parks told The New York Times at the time. In May 2024, after his wife Melinda died, a judge ruled to place Wilson under a conservatorship, to which the musician agreed to. Court documents said Wilson had a 'major neurocognitive disorder' and was unable to care for himself, CNN reported. In Wilson's mind, The Beach Boys – as the world knew them – broke up in 1998, after Carl Wilson died of lung cancer. Dennis Wilson died in 1983 in a swimming accident. For all the sorrow and internal battles that haunted his life, Wilson never forgot about the things that made him happy: his wife, his children and music, above all else. 'They're the light of my life. Nothing brings joy into my life like my children,' Wilson told Ability Magazine in 2006. 'My children and my music are my two greatest loves.' In his interview with the magazine, Wilson said he had found ways to overcome the darkest days of his mental health conditions with the help of medication and regular visits with a psychiatrist. On what gets him through the day, he said: 'I walk five miles a day in the morning, I eat really good food, I get a little sleep at night—four or five hours, sometimes six if I'm lucky—and I use my love with people. I use love as a way to get along with people.' And when the going got tougher, he said he got through it with his willpower – which he, fittingly, called 'Wilson Power.' CNN's Todd Leopold contributed to this report.


News24
a day ago
- News24
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