Celia Cruz's 'Son Con Guaguancó' And The Bridge To Fame In Exile
The world's love affair with Celia Cruz is a story that has a middle but no beginning. Today, the world remembers Cruz as the Queen of Salsa, with her towering wigs, cackling refrain of ¡Azúcar! and permanent smile. Her best-loved hits concern happiness in the face of life's hardships: "Ay / no hay que llorar / que la vida es un carnaval / es más bello vivir cantando" (You don't have to cry / life is a carnaval / it's more beautiful to live singing). For so many, the hope and joy that Cruz embodied made her difficult ascension to fame a footnote to her success.
In the shadow of her most famous hits from the 1970s and subsequent decades, 1966's may be no one's go-to Cruz album, but it is perhaps her most significant. The album is an artifact of Cruz's 1966 and her life in transition — from Cuba to exile in the United States, and from obscurity behind institutional barriers to international fame despite systemic racism and sexism., as well as a burgeoning star, transplanting these minutiae among the tumultuous United States of 1966.
