Gloria Estefan talks about her album ‘Mi tierra’

“Mi Tierra” is still the favorite album of the Cuban-American singer Gloria Estefan, who after 30 years of release qualifies it as a “cultural project” that she made for her children together with her husband, producer Emilio Stephan.

“It was made to survive Cuba and that our children know their roots”, Estefan points out in an interview with EFE in Miami on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the album which is not the first he recorded in Spanish, but the first he made in Spanish “after the success in English”.

“It is a touching project variations of Cuban music, which is so rich Culturally it reflects Emilio and me. As artists, it’s the biggest contribution we’ve made to who we are. That mixture (of sounds) is very real to us,” says the singer-songwriter and actress.

With 12 songs written especially for the album, which sub Epic Records publishing house, Sony Music, premiered on June 22, 1993, “Mi tierra” includes boleros, son montuno, chachachá and danzón and ends with a Santiago conga.

They have been sold since 1993 19 million copieshe says proudly.

“I grew up singing songs Cuban standards. When we left Cuba, my mother could only take one suitcase, but my grandmother sent me mango compote, which was not available here, and she put records by Olga Guillot, Celia Cruz and Cachao in the box. So as a child I sang all those songs that meant a lot to me,” says Gloria.

About the creation of “Mi Tierra”, she says that when they were “at the height of their success”, she and her husband began to dream that they could show the world the reason why they mixed Afro-Cuban music with their own music.

The new songs seem to be from the 40s

“We wanted to put something new, write new songs, but they sounded like they were written in the 40s, in the golden age of Cuban music, ‘before’ Castro’s songs. So we had this idea.”

According to the interpreter, year of birth Havana in 1957 and arriving in Miami at the age of two, “the project started to grow”.

“We talked about bringing greats from Cuban musicthat’s why there’s Cachao (Cuban musician and composer Israel López, who died in 2008′), Arturo Sandoval, Paquito de Rivera and Juanito Márquez, a composer who was the king of feelings,” he explains.

“We toured all over the world with music in english, and when we told the company we wanted to do it, they thought we were crazy, because it’s an American company. But we told him: you know? You have to trust us,” the Miami Sound Machine singer recalls.

Gloria Estefan, one of the most successful artists in the history of Latin music, states that the song that gives the title to the album was written “according to the idea of ​​Emilio” who eventually rounded up the Colombian composer Fabio Alonso Salgado, better known as Estéfano.

“Emilio told him he wanted to do a song with what is on earth which he leaves behind. “I want it to be a nostalgic song, for every immigrant anywhere in the world to remember the smells, the tastes,” he asked, and the two sat down and composed the song.

The singer recalls that she had already recorded “A toda máquina” in Spanish with Miami Sound Machine, which only had two “cold” songs in English: “I Need A Man” and “Dr. Beat.”

“I was singing in Spanish long before all the hits in English, so (with ‘Mi Tierra’) it was like going back to our initial idea and the songs we played here at (parties since) 15, weddings, baptisms, but with songs new and original.

“I loved every moment of making that record,” he says.

When asked how she feels knowing that her music is still officially banned in Cuba, she replied:

“This record was a love letter our country and hand that I had continued to Cuba through these 90 miles. Cuba is still very important in our lives, we share something that is our heritage,” he pointed out.

Next week Gloria Estefan will be inducted into the American Songwriters Hall of Fame. It’s “something that means a lot to me,” he says.