Gloria Estefan Biography, Songs, & Albums |

Gloria Estefan is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She rose to fame in the 1980s with her band Miami Sound Machine. Estefan has sold more than 70 million records worldwide.

Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-American singer, songwriter, actress and producer. She has won a total of eight Grammy Awards and is one of the best-selling music artists of all time, having sold over 100 million records worldwide. Read more in detail here: gloria estefan nationality.

Gloria Estefan is probably the most successful crossover performer in Latin music history, with over 100 million albums sold, more than three dozen number one hits, and a long list of accolades. Estefan opened the path for singers like Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, and Shakira, to mention a few, by being a decade ahead of the first worldwide Latin pop boom. With the release of the European club hit “Dr. Beat” in 1984, she started her solo and Miami Sound Machine (co-led with producer-multi-instrumentalist husband Emilio Estefan, Jr.) careers. “Conga” in 1985 and “The Rhythm Is Gonna Get You” in 1987 were both hits at home. These signature Estefan songs fused sleek Miami pop with Cuban polyrhythms. She seamlessly transitioned between Latin and Anglo styles, including cumbia, funk, son, montuno, guajira, rhumba, soul, and pop components. Estefan’s polished ballad “Anything for You” reached number one for the first time in 1988, and he dominated the 1990s charts with smash songs including “Turn the Beat Around,” “Mi Tierra,” and “Oye.” Her platinum records, such as Destiny from 1996, achieved the same. In the twenty-first century, she released the multi-platinum Alma Caribea and the gold-certified 90 Millas in 2007. Standards, her final album before taking a long hiatus from music, debuted at number 20 on the Billboard 200 in 2013. The Estefans were the first couple to earn the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and Gloria was the first Cuban-American singer/songwriter to receive a Kennedy Center Honor. They were philanthropists and humanitarians. The Library of Congress has awarded the pair the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. On Your Feet, a Tony-nominated Broadway musical, was inspired by their life and music.

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Estefan was born Gloria Fajardo in Havana on September 1, 1957, and spent much of her childhood in Miami, Florida, when her father, a bodyguard for Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, was forced to leave the country after Fidel Castro’s 1959 coup. Fajardo and her cousin Merci Murciano auditioned for the Miami Latin Boys, a local wedding band led by Emilio Estefan, Jr., in 1975. The group was renamed Miami Sound Machine once they were recruited. Fajardo and Estefan married four years later. As Miami Sound Machine started to write their own original material, their mix of pop, disco, and salsa drew a loyal local audience, and the group released their first Spanish-language album on CBS International in 1979. They did not cross over to non-Latin listeners until the song “Dr. Beat” topped European dance charts in 1984, despite a burgeoning Latino fan base.

Miami Sound Machine’s first English-language album, Primitive Love, was released in 1985. With the catchy “Conga,” “Bad Boy,” and “Words Get in the Way,” it earned three Top Ten pop singles in the United States alone. The ensemble was branded as Gloria Estefan & Miami Sound Machine for 1988’s triple-platinum Let It Loose, which produced four Top Ten hits: “Rhythm Is Gonna Get You,” “Can’t Stay Away from You,” the chart-topping “Anything for You,” and “1-2-3.” Cuts Both Ways, released in 1989, was solely attributed to Estefan and yielded her second number one single, “Don’t Wanna Lose You.” On March 20, 1990, her bus was hit by a tractor trailer while on tour in promotion of the record. She fractured her vertebrae, which necessitated major surgery and kept her off the road for more than a year. Emilio Estefan and the couple’s kid were also wounded in the accident, but they all survived. With Into the Light, Estefan reappeared in 1991, topping the charts once again with “Coming Out of the Dark,” a song inspired by her near-fatal car accident; two additional tracks from the album, “Can’t Forget You” and “Live for Loving You,” cemented her place on the adult contemporary charts.

Mí Tierra Estefan returned to her roots with Mi Tierra in 1993, recording her first Spanish-language album in nearly a decade and winning a Grammy for Best Tropical Latin Album; on the follow-up, 1994’s covers collection Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me, she also recalled her dance-pop roots with a cover of the Vicki Sue Robinson disco classic “Turn the Beat Around.” Abriendo Puertas, another all-Spanish effort, also won a Grammy, and Destiny included “Reach,” which was chosen the official song of the 1996 Summer Olympics. Estefan ruled as the most successful crossover artist in Latin music history, with worldwide record sales near to the 50 million mark, while Latin pop made fresh commercial progress due to artists like Ricky Martin and Enrique Iglesias. In 1999, she made her feature film debut in Music of the Heart, starring Meryl Streep, singing the film’s title song as a duet with *NSYNC, which became a huge pop success and earned her an Oscar nomination.

Alma Caribea, a new Spanish-language album, was released in the spring of 2000. Estefan won a Grammy for Best Music Video for “No Me Dehes de Querer” at the inaugural Latin Grammy Awards a few months later. Emilio, her husband, was named Producer of the Year. Unwrapped, her English-language debut, was greeted with mediocre reviews from both reviewers and customers in 2003. For many years, she didn’t release a new album, opting instead for stop-gap collections like Amor y Suerte: Exitos Romanticos (2004) and The Essential From time to time, albums such as Gloria Estefan (2006) and Oye Mi Canto: Los Éxitos (2006) were published. When she returned in 2007, with 90 Millas, she did it with a bang. The Cuban-themed, Spanish-language album was a huge success on the Latin music industry; its first single, “No Llores,” rapidly rose to the top of Billboard’s Hot Latin Tracks list, and the album was a chart-topper as well. Miss Little Havana, a dance-pop album produced by Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes, marked Estefan’s comeback to English-language pop in 2011. For her following album, Estefan turned in the other way, tackling the Great American Songbook on The Standards, released in 2013.

Estefan took a break once the supporting tour finished. She had considered releasing an album that celebrated the musical connections between Cuba and Brazil. Estefan combed through her repertoire with a group of Brazilian musicians and producers in late 2016. They collaborated on 14 of her classics, including “Conga,” which was renamed “Samba,” as well as four brand-new songs, rearranging and re-recording music and vocals. After Estefan’s mother died and other life circumstances occurred, the finished set was briefly shelved. The song “Cuando Hay Amor” was released to radio and online in June. Sony published the full-length Brazil305 in August.

Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-American singer, songwriter, actress, and businesswoman. She has released over 30 albums and won five Grammy Awards. Reference: what is gloria estefan famous for.

Frequently Asked Questions

What made Gloria Estefan famous?

Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-American singer, songwriter, and actress. She began her career in the 1970s as the lead singer of the Miami-based band called The Miami Sound Machine. Her first major success came with her first English-language album called Let It Loose which was released in 1985 on CBS Records.