Tours get in the way

Latin powerhouse Estefan says it's time to say farewell

Friday, August 27, 2004

Plain Dealer Pop Music Critic

Gloria Estefan is saying adios to the road.

She launched her farewell tour last month. It stops Wednesday the Cuban-born pop singer's 47th birthday at Gund Arena.

Estefan said during a teleconference that touring takes a toll on her.

"My body is my instrument," she said. "I sing every single song. There's no lip-synching in this concert. Music moves me, so my natural instinct is to move around a lot. It's physically very demanding.

"My life on the road is basically sleeping, working out and doing the show. . . .The physical demands of the tour [are] what I will miss the least.

"What will I miss the most? The fans." Besides, Estefan doesn't want to be shaking her body and doing the conga when she's past her prime.

She told her sister: "If I ever go crazy and start walking around in my chaps with my butt hanging down to the floor and long, curly gray hair, saying I'm the conga queen, I give you permission to shoot me."

Estefan promised a "high-energy" send-off, complete with a career-spanning selection of hits, 10 dancers and "an amazing light show."

She'll be backed by her Miami Sound Machine band. Before Estefan joined the group founded by her husband of 25 years, Emilio Estefan in 1975, it was known as the Miami Latin Boys.

"I was painfully shy," Gloria Estefan said. "It took me quite a few years to get used to being the face of the group."

Truth be told, she never cared for the Miami Sound Machine's moniker.

"The name, to me, didn't fit us, because we were very organic," she said. "We were the furthest thing from a machine."

Nonetheless, it turned out to be "a very lucky name," she said.

Fronted by Estefan, the band scored its breakthrough Top 10 hit in 1985 with "Conga." At first, however, getting the Latin-flavored single on the radio was "a long, hard battle," Estefan said.

"Our biggest fans were in the Midwest, where they weren't used to any kind of Latin music," she said. "I don't think the problem with crossing over . . . has anything to do with the actual listeners. I think they're open-minded. It's just sometimes advertisers, promoters and the people who are in charge of the actual radio stations are afraid to take chances."

Despite the Top 40 inroads made by herself and others from Marc Anthony to Shakira Latin artists still have a long way to go in the United States, Estefan said.

"If you look at mainstream radio . . . we're still far away from making the kind of impact we could make," Estefan said. "I still wish stations were more open to playing in Spanish. In Europe . . . they're a lot more open about playing music from different singers in different languages." Estefan has recorded two dozen albums, some in English, some in Spanish. Her string of hits includes "Words Get in the Way," "Rhythm Is Gonna Get You" and the chart-topping "Anything for You." Among the highlights on her latest CD, "Unwrapped," is "One Name," a duet between Estefan and Northeast Ohio native Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders.

They hit it off a few years ago at the taping of a "Women Rock! Girls and Guitars" television special.

"We found we both love Karen Carpenter," Estefan said. "We really got along great. . . . I admire [Hynde] very much for sticking to her guns."

Dreams of singing

in a different Cuba

Michael Curry, who worked on Cher's farewell tour and the stage production of "The Lion King," designed the opening song-and-dance routine for Estefan's new road show, her first in eight years.

By the end of the two-hour production, it becomes "a giant party," Estefan said.

In the middle of the concert, she accompanies herself on guitar for a solo interlude - a first for her.

"I'm going to sit there, just me and my guitar, and get very intimate," she said.

Although she has no intention of touring again, Estefan hasn't ruled out the occasional gig.

She said she dreams of headlining a "celebratory" concert in Cuba if Fidel Castro's regime falls. "I'm considered persona non grata there," said Estefan, whose parents fled Castro's revolution in 1959 and relocated in Miami. (Her father was a bodyguard for former Cuban president Fulgencio Batista.)

Estefan said in the 1980s, disc jockeys in Cuba were beaten for playing her music.

Once she's off the road, she'll keep making music.

"I would love to do a standards album, quite honestly - very intimate, almost . . . jazzy," Estefan said, mentioning Cuban trumpeter Arturo Sandoval as a possible collaborator.

She wants to work with "American Idol" singer Diana DeGarmo on another project.

Estefan has other irons in the fire, including a starring role in a biopic about singer Connie Francis.

Estefan plans to write an autobiography, too, covering everything from the challenges she overcame as an immigrant to her comeback after she broke a vertebra in a 1990 tour bus accident.

She hopes the book, like her music, will inspire fans.

"I hope in some way I've been able to empower them, to make them feel like they can make a difference in their own lives," Estefan said.

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