A Conversation with Gloria Estefan – HuffPost 9.4.13

Mike Ragogna: Hi, how are you doing Gloria?

Gloria Estefan: I’m great, nice to talk to you again. How are you doing?

MR: I’m pretty well. You must be all excited about this new album The Standards.

GE: I am very excited.

MR: What made you want to do a standards album this time out?

GE: Well, I’ve been planning it for quite a while, I was just waiting for the right musical idea. That came a couple of years ago when I sat at the piano with Shelly Berg, the head of the Frost School of Music at a trustee dinner, because it’s my alma mater and I’m a trustee. He asked me to do a song and we did “Good Morning, Heartache,” which I had done on the Carson show when we sang conga years before. When I heard him play and the way he played and what he was doing, I knew that was exactly the kind of thing that I wanted to do with a standards record. I invited him right after finishing the song because the whole thing unfolded in my brain as we were singing it. I asked him right after and he loved the idea. I sorted through over a thousand songs, I whittled it down to fifty, we met, and we actually played at his piano for like six hours to try everything on for size. I ended up picking songs that were very, very personal and very special to me because that’s the only thing I think I can bring different, and of course Shelly’s arrangements, which he did a spectacular job on. I wanted to walk that fine line where my pop fans would enjoy it, but musicians would find it adventurous and interesting. He did exactly that.

MR: Gloria, I’d bet some of these songs I’m imagining were playing in your family household when you were younger.

GE: My mom was an amazing singer and music was a big part of my life, so I grew up listening to Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Henry Mancini; I used to watch The Andy Williams Show on TV. I was very musical, so I was watching stuff that most kids my age wouldn’t be interested in. But since I sang since I talked, all of those variety shows that had music were just such a huge draw for me. I used to love Dean Martin and Andy Williams… I remember seeing The Osmonds the first time they were on. It was very natural, so when I started playing guitar, I would sing these songs for my dad. His favorites were “Moon River” and “Smile” and “Wonderful World,” so I would play this stuff for my family on my guitar. It’s very much a part of my core musical experience as a kid.

MR: Now, you take on “What A Wonderful World,” the Louis Armstrong classic. When you recorded this, did it feel like you were a kid again singing to your pop?

GE: It did, but I’ve got to tell you that at this stage in my life–having seen so much, and now we’re so barraged by every single thing that happens worldwide–I think Shelly did an amazing job of expressing musically both the turmoil and the beauty of the world as it was intended in that song. You really want kids to be hopeful. Sometimes, it’s kind of hard the way that they get attacked by so much information that they can do nothing about, so I was thinking about all those things when I was singing that song, and my daddy of course.

MR: Beautiful. “What A Wonderful World” also has a connotation with the sixties and in some respects, maybe because of the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, the Vietnam War. There does seem to be an irony with that song. It’s sort of like, “Keep your head up, kid,” but on the other hand, you’re right, with the barrage of information and troubles in the world, how one keeps their positivity up can be challenging. That song, to me, is an anthem that can help you keep your head up.

GE: Yes, indeed. Like the song “Smile,” which always made me cry.

MR: [laughs] More irony. And I know what you mean, of course.

GE: It would always give me the opposite effect, but in a beautiful way. It’s the way that I’ve lived my life. I’m an army brat, my dad was in Vietnam. We would exchange tapes and I would sing these songs for him. For me, it’s always, “Stuff happens, that’s the reason we’re here.” We’re here to learn. If you’re not going to learn from everything being hunky-dory, what would be the point? You have to focus on the positive and work towards a better world always and not give up. There are so many beautiful things that are a part of the world and I’ve always looked at life that way, I’ve always tried to put on a smile and a brave front, not just for my kids but in my own life and all the difficulties that I’ve gone through. When I sing these songs, that’s exactly what I focus on, the beauty in the world and the necessity to really look forward and look positive and be stronger.

MR: So you came across a couple of writers whose songs you did more than one of on The Standards, The Gershwins, for example. Did you find you had more of an affinity to a couple of these writers or was it about the songs themselves?

GE: I love Gershwin. I love musicals. A lot of these songs started in a certain way, like My Fair Lady‘s “I’ve Grown Accustomed To His Face,” which is “Her Face,” originally. That’s what makes it a standard, depending on who takes it on it becomes a whole different song with a whole different meaning for a different generation. For me it was all about my husband, down to the whistling. He whistles when he’s upset and he whistles when he’s happy, and I can tell which one it is by the tone. So he was in the studio and I sang it directly to him. I love Iris Sullivan, I love the Gershwins, I love songs. It hasn’t been for me so much about actual writers unless it’s somebody like Carole King, which is somebody I have a great affinity for. She was a huge part of my growing up and she’s an idol. As a matter of fact, on one of the versions of this album, there’s a version of her and me doing “Natural Woman” that we did together at Foxwoods. It’s not on all the albums. You know how now they have all these different bonus tracks and everybody wants a different one? The thing we did together was one of them. So yeah, I love Gershwin, but to me, the songs are the stars and they were chosen very much for how they fit into my life and my experience.

MR: Yeah. Now some of these also a part of American pop culture, forever associated with certain artists. For instance “Young At Heart,” I don’t know if you’re ever going to get away from that version by Frank Sinatra.

GE: I am a huge Sinatra fan. When I got to do that duets album with him, I’m telling you it was like a dream come true. These guys are amazing. Nat King Cole, I have every record, I’ve heard every note he’s sung including his Spanish stuff, because remember he did a whole Spanish album, a couple of them. So I’ve been listening to these guys forever. When I was doing the photoshoot before I actually went into the studio–because we did it live in four days with these amazing musicians that are really the cream of the crop of this genre–these guys played with all those guys. They played with Sinatra; they played with Ella Fitzgerald, with Count Basie, with Duke Ellington, with Tony Bennett. These guys brought to the table so much and I sang with them every step of the way because I think you bring something else to the situation. But I actually bought six or seven versions of each song that I listened to while I was doing the photoshoot because I wanted also to remind myself that one of these songs belonged to this artist so that I wouldn’t tread on it. You don’t realize, but especially if you’re a musician, everything influences you and everything gets into your subconscious and I really wanted to bring something very unique to the table. So I first listened again and refreshed my mind as to what it was about these songs that made them theirs. Then when I went into the studio I went into my own personal space but I knew exactly what to avoid if there was a line or an expression of a line or a way to interpret that had been done by someone else. I didn’t want to do that, so I did some homework there to avoid exactly that.

MR: Nice. Could there, in the future, be a Spanish language version of this album?

GE: Well, I already started it with this. I wrote a Spanish version of “Smile,” which didn’t exist. They had done some version a while back, but it was a love song, it had nothing to do with the actual meaning of this. I got to play it for Geraldine Chaplin, the way, and she told me she loved the Spanish even more than the English version because she knows Spanish and she knows Italian. I also recorded it in Italian, so that was very special. Then I flipped it, and did my wedding song, “El Día Que Me Quieras,” which is a 1920s huge hit by Carlos Gardel, the tango god of Argentina, which I rewrote in English and to be sanctioned by his institute was a huge deal for me. They allowed and loved my version that I did in English. It’s called “The Day You Say You Love Me,” and I hope it becomes a killer wedding tune because that was my wedding song with Emilio thirty-five years ago.

MR: And you also cover one of my favorite artists, Antonio Carlos Jobim.

GE: Oh, my god, yes, and I wrote an English version to that song, as well, so that’ll be one of the bonus tracks. I recorded it in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.

MR: Wow. It seems certain songs lend themselves to various languages because their messages stay intact no matter what. For instance, I think you could sing “La, la, la, la, la, la, doh-dee-doh-dee-doh” on “Smile,” etc., and people would get what that song meant because the sentiment was written right into the music.

GE: Yes, it is. That’s one of those songs that takes my heart and twists it into a ball. It just does that for me, and it’s ironic because it says, “Smile,” but what it does is makes me cry. Every version I’ve ever heard, from Michael Jackson to Natalie Cole, all the greats that have done it and the original… It’s just one of the things that’s in that music. And I think that’s why Geraldine Chaplin loved the Spanish so much, because you can be so passionate in Spanish and really express emotion a lot and that does happen in the Spanish version. Also instead of saying “Smile,” although it has the word in it, it’s “laugh” in Spanish, because in the Hispanic sensibility you’re going to laugh in the face of danger, not smile. That’s more our nature, so she thought it captured even more.

MR: Nice. Is there a song here that might be the centerpiece of the album? Something that’s so personal, you go, “Yeah, that’s who Gloria Estefan is, that’s me”?

GE: Maybe “Embraceable You,” because that song is a love song, but to me it was sung to my daughter who was in the studio and is an amazing musician and loved every step of the process and she’s going away to college. It’s just how the album started, the idea of pianos and violins, very intimate, and you could hear every breath in there and every emotion of a mother who is so in love with her daughter and is about to go through a new phase and how that’s the way it is. You love and then sometimes you have to let go. At the core of everything, I think it could also be “Good Morning Heartache.” That started this album and it’s a song where I dug deep, because it’s not particularly about a love experience, but it’s about the many times in my life that I’ve had to really face some very, very dark things. It’s hard to pick just one, but probably those two.

MR: Is there a possibility of a The Standards II?

GE: Oh, yeah, I’ve already thought of what I’d like to call it. But yeah, are you kidding me? When you do something and you have so much fun doing it, remember I picked fifty songs. I had to whittle down the fifteen that ended up on this record.

MR: You have the thirty-five to go, now.

GE: [laughs] Yeah, there’s definitely more, and I’ll do something different and fun but still kind of ride that wave we started with. I really, really loved the experience and Shelly was amazing to work with.

MR: Gloria, you are a pop icon, and I mean that in a good sense.

GE: Thank you so much.

MR: Given that, what is your advice for new artists?

GE: Oh, my God! You know, especially now, it is so tough for them because they are facing a time where it’s a singles-related thing and people’s attention span is so short, it’s tough to develop a career. All I tell artists is do what you love. Never let anybody talk you into changing what your musical idea is just to try to get a hit, because you’re chasing your tail that way. It’s not going to happen, and if you’re successful, you have to do it the rest of your life. Stay true to it and do it for the sake of the art. Ben Franklin, I think, would be very happy in these times. He thought that inventions and music, all that kind of thing, should be free to the world and that’s practically what we’re facing right now. So he’d be happy. It’s tough for intellectual property and people that write, but if you’re an artist, you’re going to do it because you love it and because you want to share it. Always continue to do art for the sake of doing it and then hope that it goes well and that you can make a living out of it. But it really should be about sharing your musical dream and what you feel and putting out there to the universe some beautiful music that will become part of people’s lives.

MR: Beautiful, Gloria, and all the best with the record and everything you’ve got going.

GE: Thank you so much!

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne