Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Gloria Estefan: A Journey of Resilience, Rhythm, and Roots

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

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. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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 conversation 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 Kanga, 1,2, 3, the rhythm is going to get 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 J-Lo, 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 Raeis, 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 sense. 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. 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. It's my pleasure. You know, I'm a big fan, I told you. 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. 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 pounds 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 tarot-pourri, Malangita, which is what all Cuban parents feed you or grandparents when you're sick, and he would send chicken and the tarot 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. Maybe that was your little secret to recovery, the puree, right? Yeah, I think so. Malangita, Mananga, puree. Well, I have to congratulate you already on your new album because you've got a number one hit right out of the gate.

on three different billboard charts. How does that feel? You've had a bunch over the years, but here you are again. 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 went 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, Reises, 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 fell in love with Raises from the moment I heard it. I thought it was something people needed to hear, especially in these times. For those who don't speak Spanish, Raises means roots, which is a lot of what this music is. As you said, your first Spanish-speaking album in almost two decades.

Why did you want to come back with this kind of album? It's full circle. He didn't even realize, but I told him, babe, 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.

Kachau. And of course, My Tierra was an amazingly successful album for us. I wanted to capture Cuba-B-C. Music before Castro, because Cuba 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 mostly emotionally. You know, it says 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. 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 Spanish. I love it.

It's a vibe, right? It's a vibe. Makes you feel something. That's exactly right. That's what great music can do, and this certainly doesn't. You mentioned Amelia 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? 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 it, we'd be dead of heart attacks by now. So it's a nice 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 at 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 we're 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 clean your accordions for you, because that's what he played in a van 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 Bucardi and going to school at night. He started building out the band. For me, music was my escape. 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 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. It seems joyful, too, right? It doesn't feel like work or business to you at all when you're working together. It's joyful. The studio is 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 Reises. 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. 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. It was very emotional in the second video, Vecina, 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 live 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 Lais, 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 able to do that. thought the same thing. I wasn't ready for that. It was a nice still image and then they come to life. Neither was I. 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. When you go back to a place like that first apartment and you were just a toddler, right? You were a 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? 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 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 Cuana de Aviation 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. 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 electric. 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

persevered, but we do what we love it. It's never felt like work. 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 a Spanish language album. I noted that when asked, you often say, Miteera 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? 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. And you 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 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 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 Vicina. I wrote all the ad-libs. I thought it was so funny and then to be able to contribute. 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 Viro 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 and on 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. 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. was very happy about it. I wrote my son's song Naib 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 and he goes, okay, I wrote this love song for you. And I go, you're going to sing it on the album? Because he's got a beautiful voice, but it's not his bad. And he goes, no, no, you're going to 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 Howe Paso. It's, oh my God, he's too funny. He wrote himself a love song. That's amazing. And he knew that I was going to sing it for him. So he wrote it. I actually, every word I would have written. I have written in other songs. 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. Welcome back now more of my conversation with Gloria Estefan. Thinking about your own roots and you touched on this minute ago, but coming from Havana at two 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. You're too young to remember a lot about that time, but can you talk about how that experience and having to basically, basically,

flee your home country for good, how that has informed the rest of your life and your music, of course. 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 going to get really bad. And she didn't want to leave without him. And he says, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to 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 him. $50 a week. And my mom goes, are you sure? He goes, yeah, they said $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 Charonaut, 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 the phone number of a doctor in case you needed for Glottita, and you're going to be getting $150 a month a check from the U.S. 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'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 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 Sienfuego, one of the three architects of the revolution was the one policing El Princepe, 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 and 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 know.

can't have violet that the taste is horrendous. And then in Miami, add El 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, you know, her chest and the warm feeling it gave me that to have my mom right there, I didn't. 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 they were talking about. And I remember her being very, very lonely, crying a lot. and still trying to make it nice for me.

Like still made a little like kindergarten where she taught the kids and still trying to make life bearable. And I admire her very much for that because I now know. I mean, she was at that time she was 29 and had been the princess of her house. And then she's here alone with a kid, no support. So that's, I think, why they clung to each other so much the women. And your dad, I mean, His life is like a movie.

If you read the story of, you know, Bay of Pigs, prison for a couple of years, makes it home, thank God. But then he goes off to Vietnam. Yeah, joins the Army. Joins the Army. We talked to shared experience and my father was there at the same time. Both exposed to Agent Orange, your father becomes ill. And it seems like you, because your mom had to work so hard at a very young age, you kind of became a bit of a caretaker. Very much.

And didn't have that teenage experience that most of us think of in America. Is that fair to say? Very fair to say. I felt really bad for my mom because her hopes were, okay, she made it through him being in Bay of Pigs. She made it through the six months of basic training that he went to Forebending, Georgia. Then we were very happy in Texas in San Antonio. My sister was born. We were stationed there.

Then in South Carolina, we were super happy. and then Vietnam. And he didn't have to go because he was, you know, the sole supporter and he wasn't, he was American because eventually he became American, but he wasn't going to send his troops without him. And he was very idealistic man, very moral. And he thought, I need to fight communism wherever it is. And I need to be there for the American army because we want to ask them to go back. That was the secret desire of the Cubans that joined the army. the U.S. Army, was that from within the ranks, and one of them made it all the way to general, four-star general, that they would be able to, you know, go back to Cuba and do a second, because

it was too early. Cuba was not ready. They were really supporting Fidel at that time, and the fact that they got, you know, left behind because aircraft carriers turned around and left them there, and they canceled all the air support. So they were hoping to go back. And then my mom was so hopeful when he came from Vietnam, she asked him, please, you know, you've given enough for both countries. So he didn't reenlist for a little while. But then he told my mom, I can't.

I'm an army guy. And she said, okay, but she had already started noticing some things that weren't right with him. And she said, you need to get a checkup. I'll follow you wherever you go. and that's when they diagnosed the Agent Orange, which all the guys on his base, young guys, they came back with those neurological issues.

And my poor mom, you know, once again, so I wanted to be strong for her and help her. And I would take care of my dad. She had to work during the day, and she was going back to school at night to get her teaching credentials because she knew she'd have to step it up because he wasn't on full pension or anything.

And then I would be there for my dad. I'm the caretaker of him, my younger sister. By the time I got back from school at 3 o'clock, I was caring for them until my mom got home late at night. So I had to step it up. Yeah, I did very much. And then I got a job when my dad finally had to go to the hospital because we couldn't care for him sufficiently at home.

I got a full-time job at the airport as an interpreter because I had studied French and been accepted to UM, studying psych and communications majors in a French minor. And that was thrilling for me. But we would still go every day to the hospital, you know, to help shave and feed my dad. And all the guys that were with him on that floor because they were vastly understaffed. And my mom and I would help there too. I mean, that's a lot for a young teenage. girl to take on. I felt strong though. I've kind of had my youth backwards, which I really like. I had a really tough time as a kid and as a teenager. And then I married Emilio. And rather than people

say, oh, you lock down when you get married. No, for me, it was like, I blossomed. And he was so, you know, always so motivational and wonderful and saw things of me before I saw them, you know, possibilities. because I was, like I say, I didn't like be in the center of attention. It's not like I was shy one-on-one, but getting on stage was like, whoa, everybody's looking at me. And the music really took off. So you met in 75, you met Emilio. Yes. With the Miami Latin Boys, right?

Yes. Before it was the sound machine. Exactly. That, you know, you're 17, 18 years old. You had to be pretty darn talented for an established band to say, we want to. you to come sing with us. How did that start? Well, especially since at that time there were no female singers in bands. I mean, bands were boy bands. Even in the American market, like, I remember Carol King being such an icon to me and an idol. I wore out her tapestry album. And she was kind of

the first woman that started doing big shows and concerts. She'd been in the business since she was, she was a teenager, writing the Brill Building here and everything. And I first met him at a friend's house that called him to give us pointers on how to get a band together for one night. And there was a knock on the door. I was sitting on the floor. Door opens. Here's a guy, an accordion and bare legs. I'm going like, what the?

I thought he was naked for a minute because he had on these short shorts that his mother had made him from couch material. Wow. Yeah, that was impressive. He had great legs. And I liked looking at his hands while he was playing the accordion. I was on the floor. He gave his pointers he left. And then that summer, one of my dad's army buddy's daughter that I grew up with in South Carolina was getting married.

And my mom, please, you got to come with me to the wedding. I go, Mom, I have two jobs at the time. I was getting ready to start as a sophomore in college because I took a test and they gave me 30 credits. And I was getting ready for that. I go, Mom, please don't do this to me. Like I don't have time. Oh, the guilt. Your daddy can't go.

And all right, all right. I go. I walk in and the door opens and this. twinkle lights, this magical thing in the banquet hall. And then way over on the other side, I see this guy in a tux with his band playing Do the Hustle on the accordion, which I found both charismatic and brave. Because, you know, the accordion, like weird out. Like, wait a minute, that guy looks familiar. So as we run into each other in a doorway, he goes, I remember you. You're that girl a couple months ago. I go, yeah, I remember you. He goes,

why don't you sit in with a band? Because he had heard me sing. He goes, sitting with the band, do a couple songs. And I go, well, I'm freaking out. Like, what do you know? I go, well, I know Cuban standards that I've played for my grandma on the guitar. Do you know, saura me? He goes, yeah, we play that. Forget the key. It didn't matter. Tu-maccumbrater, do you know that? He goes, yeah. So I go, okay, so I'm standing up there freaking out. My mother's, yeah, sting, because I I used to play guitar for these people. This is at the wedding. At the wedding.

Amazing. But these people, the whole family, they knew me as a kid playing guitar, playing all these songs. And it was the first time I ever played with a band. And I'm, oh, my God, I was going like, this sounds so incredible. And of course, I got a standing ovation. He didn't know that I knew everybody at that wedding. And that night, he comes up to me at the end, and he goes, you know, we don't have really a lead singer.

I sing one song, the bass player sings. I think it'd be really cool. Nobody in Miami has girls singers, and I think you'd be great. And I go, listen, I appreciate it, but I've got two jobs. I'm going to school full time now in September, and my mom will kill me if I do this. And he goes, oh, but I think you'd be great. I go, thanks, but you know, I can't. And then two weeks later, the phone rings. And my sister, it's that boy from the party. And he says, look, I work full time too. I promise you it won't, you know, interfere with anything. I won't let it. This, we do this for fun and, you know, I make extra money, but I do it because I love it. It's, and he goes, bring your mom, you know, bring your grandma here, bring everybody Tuesday to my house for, and when I get there,

they're all crammed into an apartment. A nine piece band, the apartment was smaller than this room we're in right now. And in that they lived in like a condo complex and everybody was dancing in the middle of the courtyard. They would do that when he would rehearse because they had no choice. Right. And I was up against all, just looking around. And he told her, but he looked, you know, this is Gloria. I'd love for her to join the band. And then my grandma was the ultimate stage mother. She tried to get my mom. My mom won a contest in Cuba to be Shirley Temple's double in Hollywood to dub her movies in Spanish. Wow. She looked same age, same curls at my Grandma would make on her head 51 curls every day.

She would be with her sheet music and clothes that she would make for my mom and she won the contest. My grandpa said, no. So when I started singing, my grandma would make me sing for, she made kind of like an illegal restaurant in her house. And she would have me sing for people and I would be staring at the floor. I go, Grandma, this, you know, she goes, you have a gift. And one day it's going to fall in your lap. And I hope you're smart enough to realize that if you don't do this, you're not going to be happy in your life. So when Emilio calls that we're all at that rehearsal, my mom was not happy.

And she pulled me to the side and she goes, you remember what I told you? You're going to be 18. It's your decision. Don't let your mom sway you. Remember what I told you? You need to share that gift. So I told my mom, I go, Mom, I'm not going to quit school. I want to do this.

And I did, and she was not happy about it, but my grandma was thrilled. The wisdom of a grandmother, right? She was right. We were super tight. Yeah. She was my hero. Yeah. And you did finish school.

You graduated. By the way, I don't know if people realized this, except to the Sorbonne. Yes. In Paris. My gosh, rock star. I was going to study. Academic rock star also. I loved education.

If I could go back now, I would. I've, you know, thought about it. Could I get my master? Could I, you know, because I love to learn. Every day I learn something. And there's so many ways to learn now. But I have been accepted to both the clinical psych school at UM. There were only 12 chairs.

At that point, I had realized that I couldn't really divorce myself from the emotional situation with the people we worked with and social work and stuff. And it really made me feel, you know, sad for them because they were kind of stuck in situations. and I couldn't handle the lab with the little bunny rabbits and brains exposed. Too much. So I thought, you know what? Maybe this isn't for me. I've got enough.

We all go looking for self-help when we study psychology. And I kind of got it. But then I'm going to go study international law and diplomacy at the Sorbonne. And I got accepted there. But I had been in the band. And at that point we started, you know, Emilio kind of did his thing. thing and came forward in typical Emilio way without saying anything. One night we were playing on the 4th of July, 1976 bicentennial.

He said, let's get some air, the third floor of this boat that we were playing on and fireworks are going off. And that day he had asked me to go with him in the van because it was a kind of iffy area. And on the way there, he says to me, mind you, we never dated, nothing's been going on. He had an older girlfriend as far as I was concerned. He goes, you know, I bet we'd get along great if we got married. And I go, whoa. Married?

I started laughing. And then that night he said, you know, it's my birthday. I go, really? He goes, yeah, why don't you give me a kiss on the cheek? And I go, no, get you a present. He goes, come on, a little kiss on the cheek. Turns his face. That was his way of telling me, I'm interested in you.

And needless to say, there was a chemistry there all along. We didn't want to go there because of the band. It was, don't win so well. And here we are almost 50 years later. It's working out very well. Very well. Stick around for more of my conversation with Gloria Estefan right after a quick break. Welcome back now to the rest of my conversation with Gloria Estefan.

So you guys had success, really great success as a band with Latin audiences. It's fair to say for several years. And then you decide to do an English-speaking language, which just sort of like explodes. And you come out with conga. Yes. And it feels like everything changes. What was that moment like for you when not only for you personally, but you could feel people, if you can go down the list of artists who give you credit for sort of pulling Latin music into the mainstream of American culture? What was the moment like?

Well, I wish I could take that credit, but I always, you know, tip of the hat, Carlos Santana, Jose Feliciano, Desi Ernest, who I used to watch on the I Love Lucy show singing in Spanish. And nobody had a beef with that. Like, it was one of the top shows. So I grew up thinking, yeah, this can happen, but it wasn't in my plan. Our first two albums were half in English, half in Spanish. So we made them ourselves. It was a little ahead of the curve, and the hits that became hits were in Spanish.

So then when Disco's CBS came looking for us, they asked us to, they wanted to sign us in Spanish. But then we said, okay, but we want to keep the right to record in English. We kind of snuck it in the contract. Then they're going, hey, go ahead, you know, put it in there. We're not going to do it. But we snuck a couple of songs in. I need a man in Dr. Beat. Emilio and I took Dr. Beat, made a 12 inch of it, took it to the record pool.

Somehow it got famous in Europe. and we're in Europe promoting Dr. B. When they want more, they want more, we don't have more, we play these old Cuban congas that we used to play at the end of every gig, they go crazy, I tell my drummer, we've got to write a song that talks about this rhythm. And we wrote it on the trade table of the plane from Holland to England. So we come back and we tell the record company, this is the song.

And they're going, no, no, that will never get played. It's too American for the Latin's, too Latin for the Americans. We want to go with this single. Because at that point, we had talked them into letting us do an English language album because they sold so many records just from Dr. Beat on a Spanish language record. So they go, okay, let's let them do it. They give us a very small budget. Emilio and I put all our life savings into it to make it good enough to compete

because you needed to sound top-notch, use great engineer, great studio. And then we did the same thing again. We made a 12-inch of conga. We took it to the record pools, and somehow we got it. It took a year to get to the top 10. It was the first song to cross all four formats, pop, Latin, dance, and R&B. And we knew it would work because we would play it in our gigs. And people would react like if they were hearing a hit and they'd never heard it before.

We literally played it before we recorded it. And we knew that it would work. It was just convincing, you know, radio. And I remember at the time, Jeffrey Shane, this promoter that really believed in us. And he said, okay, nobody, company wasn't behind it, really. We were going despite them. And he said, I have a friend in St. Louis that owes me a favor. I'm going to call him and tell him to play it just once.

And he did. And the phones went crazy. And that's what started the journey of Conga. And like anything, you know, take some convincing. But Emilio and I, the most motivational word you can tell us is no. It's like lights of fire under our butts. It's like incredible. You're like a challenge.

Oh. Well, we knew. We believed it because we knew it. We could see it. We had a multi-ethnic audience in Miami, which allowed us to really kind of focus group our music. That's what they would call it now. but it was just everybody enjoyed it. They didn't have to understand it.

Like you so graciously said that you enjoyed it without knowing what I'm singing, the rhythm is going to get you. It's a real thing. Humanity's first way to communicate was through drums. So percussion and music is just joyous and makes you want to dance. And we had total belief.

And those songs are timeless too. I'm listening to them the last couple of days. And first of all, we know them so well that you get the first, you know, first three strokes down on the piano. And you go, oh, right, of course. And it just lights something, the energy that you convey through those songs. They still play it. And it's funny because no matter where I've been,

somebody's wedding or a club, somewhere in Europe or in Japan or whatever, that song still comes on because they still play it. They still played in the clubs, new remixes all the time and everything. But those three horn, you know, ba-p-p-ba-ba-ha. And everybody just goes. It's like they gave him permission to go berserkle. I love it. That's a cool thing, isn't it?

It is. And when my grandson was little, he goes, Tudu, I have a surprise for you. And he puts on, he makes me watch the Chipmunk movie with him. And the Chippets were doing Conga. And he thought he was going to surprise me. I mean, clearly I had to give permission. Right. But he was so excited.

And you keep seeing it come around. It's been on American Dad. It's been on South Park. It's been like the snorkeiest things that I love. And it's phenomenal. It always get a kick out of it. It holds up. It holds up well.

So we were talking about the food being brought to you in the hospital as we started here from this wonderful restaurant. You mark March 20th, 1990, as a day of rebirth, can you say? Yes. For people who don't know, I think most people know by now your tour bus was in a very serious accident. Which left you paralyzed, four weeks. for a while. Until I was put back together and was rehab. Yeah, it was a re-birthday.

And I was put back together here in New York on March 22nd, my mother's birthday. The 20th is Emilio's niece, Lily, who is like his, she was my daughter in training. Because, you know, I think, well, I used to be eight years older than her. Now somehow I'm 10 years older. I don't know how that worked out. But they lived with us when they came from Cuba. Emilio's only brother and his two kids lived with us. us and Emilio's parents and my son in a four-bedroom house in Westchester, Miami.

I loved every minute of it. And she was like my first daughter. I took her to school. I've been there for her. Her mom had passed in Cuba, so I became her surrogate mom. And it was her birthday that day. And we were heading to Syracuse for a show. We stopped because it was an accident, seven miles ahead.

It was a freak snowstorm in the Poconos. Truck was jackknife. And we stopped, and then we got rear-ended by a fully loaded 18-wheeler. And I think what happened was I was laying on the couch in the front of tour buses have like a living room scenario with a little booth to eat. I think folded backwards over the side of the booth because it was the same width of the brake. And two vertebraes were pushed in and exploded. So yeah, I opened my eyes on the floor of the bus, and I couldn't. stand up. And I knew, because I've gone through that with my dad. I was very clear,

but it also gave me hope that I was in intense pain. I knew that if I had severed the cord, I wasn't going to feel anything. So that gave me hope. A nurse that was in two cars back, came back and got in the bus and held my head like a brace. She says, you can't move. I was grabbing my legs trying to pull them up to leave the pain. And she said, you can't move. I'm going to sit here and it took an hour and a half for the ambulance to get to us. But I came here, they put me back together and through very intense rehab for many months. I was able to get back on that stage eventually. And when I did, I mean, I didn't care about getting back on stage. All I wanted to do is walk and be independent. That's all I cared about. And to try to spare my family what I had lived

through. And then when I saw my body coming back, I thought, oh my gosh, what if this was the reason for this accident where I've got an opportunity to show people that you can come back from really difficult situations and depending on how much you put into it and how much effort and perseverance and belief, you can do it. And that's what it became for me then. In that tour, I used to see people for two hours after the tour because they would want to come and touch me and talk to me because it was so miraculous. And my sister used to kid, she'd answer the phone,

Our Lady of the Rods, may I help you? She wanted to make a little bottle of me and put my pool water in. She goes, I'm sure we could make somebody. You know, humor is good. You never lose your sense of you. You got to have a little holy water from Gloria. Yes, exactly.

Yeah, you were back on stage 10 months later at the American Music Awards. You come out, you get this huge standing ovation. People frankly can't believe you're already back. Neither could I. Standing, let alone performing out there. What was driving you that whole time, those 10 months, to get back on stage? Well, I wanted to get back to show people that things happen.

And also because so many people sent so many letters and cards and prayers, there were people on their knees in the hospital in the lobby when I was in there. And I wanted to show them that their prayers. worked. And by the way, you know, I was raised Catholic. Prayer was always a mystery to me. You know, you pray, you say the Our Father, Hail Mary and all this. But it wasn't until I was in that hospital room. And there were millions of people praying for me. And I could feel it. It was like this energy that I cannot describe to you. I felt like I was plugged into the wall. And all of this positive, it felt like just love coming at me. And I would love. lay there and channel it into my nerves and imagine now they call it visualization. I was doing it

automatically. And my family would come in and they'd start crying and I'd go, I'm going to be okay. I know I feel it. I'm going to be okay. And they thought I was in denial and all this. So I wanted to prove to them that their efforts, their prayers made a difference. Now, when Dick Clark calls Emilio, my accident was in March. Dick Clark calls Emilio in September. In September, I was still like, I couldn't even put on my underwear by myself. I couldn't lift my leg high enough. I had to be wear a brace.

They had to flip me over. I couldn't bathe by myself. I couldn't do anything on my own. So Emilio sits and tells me, oh, Dick Clark called. He wants you for the American Music Awards. In January, I go, what? Are you insane? You look at me. He goes, I think you could do it. And I go, Emilio Stefan Jr. You turn around right now and you call him back and tell him that there's no way that I can do this. Don't you see?

So he tells him that. And what he did tell him was, I can't convince her if you want to talk her into it. You're going to have to tell her yourself. and Dick Clark got on a plane and flew himself to Miami. Wow. And knocked on my door. Wow. And he sat with me and he said, you know, I know that right now you think that you can't do this, he goes, but my good friend, Connie Francis,

also made her come back on my show. She thought she couldn't do it. I believe in you. He goes, I think it would be really, really great for you to get back on that. stage. And I, you know, I thought about it. He left. I go, let me think about it. But then that's when I thought, maybe this is the whole point of my fame because I didn't, I didn't care about fame. I just was doing music, which I love. I'll go, maybe this is a whole point that there could be a bigger, deeper meaning. And there was a much deeper connection with my fans from that moment on,

because they knew me as a human. You know, usually you see your icons or whatever in this otherworldly kind of way. And that experience really humanized me. And it was, they could, you know, see that I went through some hell. And I came out at the other end. And they're very much a part of that. Because they gave me that energy.

Watch your way back. And then had your daughter after that as well. Yes, they said I probably couldn't have a baby. But there's been a lot of damage in there. Like when that happened, organs went where they weren't supposed to, like especially fallopian tubes, things that you need to have a baby. But yeah, the third round of shots that we did, I go, we'll do this. And if it doesn't happen to have my son.

But, yeah, the third time was the charm and she was born. And she's, she ate her twin, I told. her. I had twin levels in there when I was pregnant with her, and then all of a sudden I thought I lost a baby, and I went back and no, I didn't. And I said, that's why you're so talented. You said, there's no room for anybody else. And you ate your twin along with all its talent. She's a beast. She's a musical beast. What a blessing. Yes. Incredible blessing. Well, it's kept you too long. I think we're to go sit for one minute, but if you have a couple of minutes, with chat. Great. Thank you so much. Wonderful. Thank you. I can talk to you all day.

Yeah, I could talk to you too. And by the way, the biggest blessing, after having that baby and I would dream one day to be able to write with her, we're writing this musical together, her and I. Three years we've been working on it. And so, did I read right? It's targeting a couple of years from now, 27? No, 26. It opens in the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. Oh, got it.

Comes here. Yeah, it comes to here. And it's about this recycled orchestra of Cathedral of Paraguay. Yeah. Talk about inspirational. These kids that live in probably the darkest, you know, situation. They live next to a landfill. Everybody makes their living from the trash.

And they've created this beautiful, like they made the school out of it. There's 300 students now. They've flown. They've played for the Pope, for Queen Sophia, with Metallica. Yeah, it's amazing. That is so cool. I can't wait to see that. I'm excited.

We'll have you back on when that's out. After that part of our conversation, Gloria and I poured a couple of coffees and enjoyed some pastilitos, a delicious treat from Cuba. You're having the staple of every Cuban breakfast, Café con leche. And, you know, it's funny, Salute.

Salute. But they give it to kids even. Oh, yes. Cuban kids drink cafe con leche. And I'm going like, did they not realize that this is, you're caffeinating, your toddlers? It's like in the bottle, a little bottle with Catholic literature in it.

They're training them, that's all. Oh, my gosh, yes. Training them from two. Mine is an espresso. This is just the hard core. Straight up. You're right. This, you're going to feel it. If you're not used to it, it's like, I can't have it past two in the afternoon is my cutoff for this.

It's that. It's that. Because, and then you'll be like, yeah, the shakes. But if you ever need to pick me up, this is the thing. It'll get you. Oh, yes. Just a quick hit, maybe, before we got into a show or something. Yeah. Oh, we had it. We called it the Voodoo Cafe. When I was on tour, we had a whole setup with umbrellas and the espresso machine. So this is your go-to then. Yeah, that's the one.

Absolutely. I'll have it in the morning. Do you know what we have here? This is pastelitos. I imagine, it looks to me like they're guava. Maybe we should. Should we try? Yeah, let's cut one open there and I'll tell you what's in it. Oh, it could be guava. It could be, what is it? I'm going to dig it on my hands. Yep, guava. Sometimes they put guava and cheese. Oh, my God.

That's nice. That's very nice. A pastry. And would this be a breakfast or at any time? It's got cream cheese. That's right. These are at any time. Honestly, dessert, middle of the day.

Oh, that's good. Breakfast. Wow. Guava is like a go-to for us. Absolutely. Oh, wait a minute. You cook, too. I mean, you cook books. I mean, you do it all. I grew up in the kitchen with my grandma. As I told you jokingly, but true, my grandma came from Cuba. She was 57, and she spoke no English.

She somehow convinced this Italian lady to rent her a house that was furnished that abutted Curtis Park. And she said to my grandfather, what are we going to do? How are we going to survive? Like, she heard the people playing Little League in the park. I was a little alleyway. And she said to her husband, come with me. They went. She saw there were no concessions. And my grandma, at the age of 12, was her father of sousheft through two presidential administrations in Cuba.

She was so good. She had a lot of brothers and sisters. So she was an incredible chef. and she borrowed a little, you know, grocery card borrowed from what up. She bought and made, bought all these ingredients. She made tamales croquettas, the pulled pork Cuban-style sandwiches, and she got a cooler and filled it with these Cuban soft drinks called Kawi that they were selling in Miami.

And she showed up to the ballpark. needless to say within half an hour there were a lot of Cubans there because Cubans and baseball and their kids it's there and she sold it out within half an hour the following weekend she went with two carts loaded with stuff

sold it out again immediately and then she told the men at this point she knew them by name she goes you see that house right there that yard that's my house why don't you come over there I'll cool some beer for you guys. She made a club.

And she eventually got a pitching machine in the yard for the kids. They would play dominoes. She was clearing five grand a weekend in cash. Come on. In the 60s. Oh my gosh. She was incredible. My grandma.

Yeah. There seems to be a threat in your family of resourcefulness. Oh, very much. So I would help her make all that food. I was helping her out in the kitchen. I wish I would have intercepted her hand on the way to the stuff because she never measured anything. She had the recipes in her hand.

Right, right. But I grew up with that. So that's why we eventually opened a restaurant, Larios on the Beach, which was there for 25 years. And now we still have one at the Cardozo. We have one in Orlando. But food and music go together beautifully. And that was in her honor.

Because she wanted to open a place, which she was a little four-foot-six Cuban woman that no, you know, the banks weren't going to give she would have made a killing. Yeah. And she did it. She made it in cash. She did it in her own way.

Absolutely. That's amazing. She was incredible. And she bought her house eventually. What a family. Helped us out. What a family. The women in my family were incredible.

That's why growing up, I didn't think there was anything I couldn't do because the women did it all. It was a great way to see possibilities rather than, oh God, I can't. do this or yeah and my mom went back she got her teacher she became the union rep for her public school she was feisty my mom incredible somehow i don't doubt that i ran into one of her students at the airport yesterday he goes he was one of the uh tsa guys security and i was going through and he comes up to me he goes your mom was the best teacher i ever had no way yeah and i go oh my god that makes me so happy. That is so sweet. I see that as messages from where I hear. Absolutely. It's a beautiful thing. We're sitting here in the theater district. We have to talk about the project. You're working to the

extent you can talk about it. You can talk about it. You can talk about it. You've had success on Broadway already. That was great. And you're going to be back soon. This is very different. You know, we had what they call it jukebox based on our lives. This I was invited, actually over five years ago, Michael Schoeman, a producer, came to Miami with an instrument made out of trash from this recycled orchestra of Cateura, Paraguay. There's a landfill harmonic, there's a documentary, which I watched before I went to the meeting. And it's how an environmental engineer came into this area next to one of the largest landfills in Paraguay, in Assumseon, where they make their living, everyone there out of trash. And what happened was they were a lot of soybeans became very popular and they kind of

gentrification got rid of farmers and they didn't have anywhere to go if you didn't have money and they end up making their own homes wherever they could. It didn't always, it wasn't always a landfill. It turned into one slowly because the government started letting people sell their trash to there. So this guy came trying to help out and ultimately to make a long story short, He was a musician and he started giving music lessons with his violin. He couldn't get all the instruments. They didn't survive the floods, the ash storms, the fires. So they started building the instruments out of trash.

And at this point, now they have a school that they made out of the trash. They have 300 students. And this is the story of how they became that recycled orchestra of Cateura, Paraguay. So it's all original songs. and I've been working for three years on that. Alex Lackamore is our musical supervisor. Michael Grypha, our director, Karen Zacharias are a writer.

Ken Cernelia from Hades Town is our dramaturg. And Patrice Delgado, who just did Buena Vista and is nominated for a bunch of things. It's our choreographer. It's happening. Yeah. I mean, for people who don't recognize those names,

those are all stars of Broadway. All stars. Hamilton, Buena Vista. Absolutely. Dear Evan Hanson, it's all in there. And the title was a little controversial. but the creative team was always about it. It's basura, which literally means trash in Spanish. And in no way are we, you know, trying to glorify or anything, but we have to call what it is.

It's about how these kids that live in dire circumstances still made something beautiful from one of the toughest, you know, situations to be in. And it's basura, like the true inspirational story of finding music in unlikely places. And music has now given them hope, options, they've traveled. They were just in Miami playing at the University of Miami. They're in a lot of recycling. They teach kids about what to do and make them conscientious about what you throw away. and do we really need so much plastic and do we need, like, it's really an amazing thing.

And at first I was daunting because I go, oh my gosh, 18 new songs at least. But it was such a beautiful thing and we wrote it together. The writer of the book and us, it all came together. It wasn't like she did her thing, then we did our thing. It's been a really beautiful creative journey. And I'm very thankful to the producers for allowing us to call it what we've wanted. wanted to call it all along. And I think people will get it because it's, it also, you know, sometimes people look at people

that they have less things and that as if they have less worth and that on the contrary, there's worth in every situation, every life, every experience is very, very worthy and and hope and beauty can come from it. So that's the whole title of the show. Cheers to that. Cheers to that. Cheers. Cheers. Starting in Atlanta next year and then be here.

May 30th of the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. And hopefully in one of these theaters later on us. Oh, it will be. I'm sure hoping it is. Thank you, Gloria. This is great. Thank you. Cheers. My big thanks again to Gloria for a great conversation.

She is just a phenomenal human being and so talented. You can stream her latest album, Raises, beginning on May 29th. And my thanks to all of you for listening again this week. If you want to hear our conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click follow so you never miss an episode. And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC to see these interviews with your own two eyes. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sit Down podcast.