Joseph, are you ready to say goodbye?
Elana Barrak messes your right.
You and me both, baby, I mean you and me both.
We've seen one Gabriel through his highs and lows. Out of a childhood filled with abandonment and loss, Wanga emerged with a song in his heart.
And our boy touched the hearts of everyone around him with his voice. Whether he was on the streets of juad Is, slinging borritos with his mother, or doing undeserved time inside a.
Prison cellth Wanga was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but during his lowest low, the right person heard his voice and carried him to stardom.
Hiki, that's the dream right, absolutely.
One.
Gabriel is the picture of rads to riches, perseverance. Anyone who's experienced hardship can find hope in his story. He's an ever man in glittering tassels.
The most fabulous rising from the Ashley and.
Rise he did decade after decade, selling millions of records worldwide to become Mexico's most successful musical artist.
And at the height of Kwangat's fame, he let the world know who he was with a wink and a smile, and the fans stood by their man.
In two thousand, Wanga set an attendance record with a string of shows at Mexico City's Zokalo Public Square, and in two thousand and two he set a record for the longest concert at seven hours.
Oh my God, like literally my abs hurt just thinking of that.
And finally, in two thousand and six, he received the Golden Garland and Universal Excellence Award from the King of Espana, commemorating his thirty five year career.
But the most fitting tribute to Wanga might have come nine years later.
That's when local Wattis.
Artist Arturo Damasco painted a mural featuring a a young Wanga on a nine story building in the singer's hometown on the US Mexico border, the same city where he sang his songs and sold those famous burritos.
Okay otravez Maas says your way, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you know what, You're not alone.
It was just a year later that the world would say goodbye to one Gabriel. In The New York Times, Kirk Semple and Elizabeth malkoln would write, it is difficult to overstate the popularity in Mexico of One Gabriel, whose music tapped a deeply sentimental lane in Mexican culture. His appeal transcended regional, racial and class boundaries in an otherwise stratified and fractured society.
His music was played at children's birthday parties and the wedding anniversaries of retirees. It provided the soundtrack for joyous occasions and just as much for heartbreak.
Today we're taking a closer look at the legac see of one Gavin.
I'm your host Liliana Oscuez.
And I'm Joseph Carrio and this is Becoming an Icon.
A weekly podcast where we give you the rundown on how today's most famous latinv stars have shaped pop culture and given the world some extra level.
Sit back and get comfortable.
Because we are going in the only way we know how, with whenas unassas.
And a lot of opinions as we relive their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what makes them so iconic. The first thing we think about when we think about legacy, especially as latinos, is family.
Okay, but say it again, but it's time. Like Vin Diesel, family. Wait, I thought it.
Familia anyway, moving right along, family loomed large for one go too.
Which makes sense, right.
He never knew his biological father and things were always complicated with his mom, and he.
Lost his mother just when his career was really taking off in nineteen seventy four, which understandably had a major impact on him. According to hardcore one gu fans, one of his most beloved songs, Amoreno, was written in honor of his mom.
Am damn, that's all I'm gonna sing, look at you?
I try.
And when he actually performs that song for his album at the Palacio de bees Atis in Mexico in nineteen ninety, he actually dedicates the song to all the mothers in the audience. I almost cried watching that performance on YouTube, Like as a mom, I was like, will Santi love.
Me this much?
Oh my god?
All right, So we know that Guanga was never ashamed of his humble beginnings. Around the same time that his mother passed away, he started making monthly donations of twenty five thousand dollars to an orphanage.
In seventies money honey, that is a lot of Netflix subscriptions.
He also adopted a twelve year old boy from the same orphanage and gave him his own name, Alberto Aguilera Junior.
What bury the lead much? Oh?
That is just the beginning.
Did you know that Juan Gabriel was an early pioneer in vitro fertilization or IVF something I know way too much about.
We shut your butt, Okay, explain all right, Okay, So here's.
How it goes.
Sojan Gabriel didn't want to go on without ever knowing what it was like to father a child, so he approached his best friend's sister, Laua Salas about artificial insemination. So the two agreed to under go the procedure completely out of the public eye, and so in nineteen eighty eight, Ivan Gabriel was born.
Huh, I know, I know, I know.
Hold on, guys, we need to give Joseph a small break to process all of this new information.
We will hold for you.
Like somebody gave me some juice or something. Okay, wow, okay, So before Ricky Martin, before Sir Elton John, before Phoebe from Friends.
Before Beyonce.
Okay, just kidding, Juan Gabriel had a baby with a Syracuse.
You're such a shady fucker, And the answer is yes. Our man was a pioneer in many ways, and once his dream of fatherhood came true, he decided to adopt three more children from the same orphanage he'd been supporting for years, Juan Gabriel, Joa n Hans Gabriel, and Jean Gabriel Aguilera Salles.
Oh my god, all of these same names. They all sound like Juangabriel. But anyways, that sounds like one big, happy family, right.
Well, that's the sad part. Tragedy touched his family in twenty twelve. His grandson died of a drug overdose. After that one, Gabriel and his eldest Alberto, grew distant, and that's without even getting into all the current legal drama between the kids. Bad hurts Wanga also went through so much pain early in his life, and that's probably what he saw in Alberto Junior at the orphanage.
He gave him his own name after all, and listen, as high as.
You can fly, no one leaves all of that behind without a scar or two. It's August twenty sixth, twenty sixteen. The Forum, which seats seventeen and a half thousand people is packed, and so was a three hundred and sixty degree stage in the middle of the crowd. An eighty piece ensemble including fifty Mariacci and orchestral musicians, ten singers, twenty dancers all wow the roaring crowd with just one man at the center of it.
All one man in fabulous blue mariachi attire, sitting on a throne with lines on the armrest.
This is the third stop on Juandabrie's Mexico Estol Gool Tour, a twenty two date sprint through the US with knights in Vegas, Miami, Dallas, and Brooklyn Barclays Center.
Baby, you might.
Call it a victory lap because earlier that year he had won Top Latin Album at the Billboard Music Awards. For Billboard, grise Leflores wrote he didn't waste any minute of the night and started off with some of his classics, including asifue Ino sent and Costumbres. The latter included a homage to the late Spanish singer Rossilla Lurgal, whose photo appeared on the screen while Gabriel sang his track made
popular by Urgal. My Heart Wanga also kept up with the times inviting Colombian Reggaetndo Sona Prieta on stage for a modernized take on Noe Neto, and he even did a Credence Clearwater Revival cover.
Wow, our boy is just always full of surprises.
Well, when you're touring the US, you got to throw one out for the classic rock deals in the crowd. After an incredible setlist touring through past and present, Wangat closed with his earliest hit and Noa Noah.
No no no so cud.
I was going to do that.
I mean, you can't not sing it, and as the music faded, the crowd was left with the message on towering screens saying congratulations to all the people that are proud to be who they are.
Okay, seriously, how many times are you going to make me cry to day?
You'd better stop.
We're almost done, I promise.
After his incredible show at the Forum One, Gabriel returned to a beachside apartment he owned in Santa Monica to rest up for his next show in your Hometown Joseph el Paso, Texas, a city that shares a border with his hometown of What Is. But tragically, Wanga would never make it to that show On Sunday, August twenty eighth, eleven seventeen Pacific time, one, Gabriel passed away due to acute myocardial failure, the very morning before he was set to take the stage for a hometown crowd.
He was only sixty six years old. My godh too young, too soon.
Do you remember where you were when you heard the news.
I don't remember exactly where I was, But what really surprised me was kind of the title wave of post on social media about him, because let's just say, like, my audience is really varied, right, Like I have all kinds of people that I follow and that follow me, and Wan Gabriel isn't an artist or a conversation that I'm having a lot on social or that people are citing on.
Social But what was crazy is all of.
My feed was Wan Gabriel, And I was like, wait a second, I'm not the only one got fan.
Like all of these people who I never.
Suspected liked his music, grew up with his music, were then sharing it.
And I thought that just goes to show you the power of.
His impact and how wide his legacy reached to this day.
Yeah, where were do you remember?
You know? What I don't.
I don't, but I just remember that the SECA is the DM day, like the Independence. I remember it being all like Huanghi's stuff. So it was just kind of like almost a month after he died and it was all flungy. So I just kind of remember there was a lot of tributes and all that stuff because I partied in Quatus and I remember that, but I didn't remember like he died in August, or I didn't have that type of recollection.
Yeah.
I think for me, it was seeing so many social posts and the fact that it was trending on now Expec then Twitter just made me think, wow, like his impact is huge, like it's global and people are talking about it. And it made me so happy because it
took me back to my grandma. His music always takes me back to my grandmother, and I had lost my grandmother the year before, and so I think for me, it was just like a really nice way to like relive that moment where I saw her really enjoying music as it was meant to be enjoyed, right, Like it wasn't about church, it wasn't about praise or faith or prayer. It was just music to have fun and dance and
sing and feel for yourself. So it was that I think that really made me kind of like smile after I dealt with all of my sadness and the loss.
Quemgabride's Mexi Costolo tour was tragically cut short, but his legacy would live on.
The funeral for guan Gabriel was an event of public mourning. Impersonators, dancers and admirers gathered from the Palacio de Bellas Artis, where Wanga recorded his first live album, to the historic center of Mexico City to say goodbye.
Wreaths of flowers adorned the steps of the palace, gifts from the President of Mexico and from close friends of Guanga such as singer Luis Migue. People lined up by the thousands to view the artist's ashes, which had arrived from sid al Fads.
Around five in the afternoon.
Ivan Gabriel Aguilera Salas placed his father's urn on a pedestal in the palace lobby, engraved with the image of the Virgen Reguadalupe.
The initials AA V were engraved in curse of lettering. Quangabrie's birth name, Alberto Aguilera blades.
In a tribute that was broadcast across the country, the Mexican tenor Fernando de la Mora, along with Wanga's backing band Madiacimitiere, performed Amore Terno, the song Juangabriel had dedicated to all the mothers in attendance at the very same by Lacio de Bellas Artes decades prior.
The tributes continued with performances from Ida Cuevas, Lucia Mendez and Daniella Romo, who had all collaborated with pugabrid La Sonora Santana, a musica tropical orchestra had been a mainstay in Mexico since the nineteen sixties, also played for the Lake Gungas.
One hundred and thirty thousand what Insists gathered around his house to mourn together, and years later they still celebrate him on the anniversary of his passing by gathering around his house, which is now cared for by a fan whom Wuanga had met at one of his concerts and whom he personally asked to take care of his house.
As say it again, Haiqi, the dream also take a shot.
I'm crying again, Okay, we are definitely listening to Wanga when We're done here.
Followed by Huanga Karaoke Nothing Better.
Five years after One Gabriel's death, Roberto Jose Andrade Franco would ride in Rolling Stone of the singer's relationship to his hometown.
Even if this is a different what is than the one Wan Gabrielle grew up in.
Even if he's not physically here, his presence remains.
He's still the one who made it out and never forgot where he.
Came from, The one who, in doing that, made the goals and dreams of everyone here that much more realistic.
The one who told everyone who'd listened that even if pain and hurt were part of life, it was also full of beauty and wonder.
The one whose songs on days like these mournful anniversaries come from what sounds like every part of the city, even without the accolades, which, just.
For the record seeks Grammy Noma Nations, three posthumous wins, an induction into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame, four number one albums on the Billboard Latin Chart, over a hundred million album sold.
It would be a massive understatement to call One Gabriel one of the Latin world's biggest icons.
He's once in a generation icon.
Stats, but like the kind of icon that every generation needs. I think one of my favorite quotes on Wangabriel's legacy is from Gustavo Ariano. He's the author of the syndicated column Asca Mexican in the La Times. He wrote, Mexican boys are taught to ridicule Wangabriel, Mexican men learn to respect the legend. He redefined masculinity as only a sequence and silk loving man could. But Wanga's truest legacy is not his music. It's what he represented personal freedom.
Like living authentically your health is so so so hard, and we got to see him do it.
He did the thing, he.
Did the thing he came to live his life.
And I think what's amazing is that when you look back at the time when these songs came out, like we are the children of the people that Wangabrielle was writing for performing for. You know, that was his generation and it's our generation that has really taken advantage and been able to use his declaration of freedom and independence of living authentically to our best interests, right like we are that generation. It wasn't our parents. Our parents couldn't
do this shit. We barely did it. And then our kids are gonna like live, you know, especially as Latinos.
Well, my kid isn't going to live. My plans aren't going to live. They're going to live authentically. Okay, don't judge me.
An icon like Wanga lives on in his music just a few blocks from his nine story mural, and what is a statue of him bears an inscription that reads miandras a Juan Gabriel vividra.
As long as someone keeps singing my songs, Juan Gabriel will live forever.
Join us right here next week as we dive into the story of another icon.
The Queen of Salsa curself seen Groups.
Thanks for listening, and we'll catch you here next week on becoming an Icon. Becoming an Icon is presented by Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Guda podcast Network. Listen to Becoming an Icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
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