By Bernice Bautista, The Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — Mexican superstar songwriter and singer Juan Gabriel died Sunday at age 66 at his home in California, his publicist said.
Gabriel was Mexico’s leading singer-songwriter and top-selling artist, with sales of more than 100 million albums. His ballads about love and heartbreak and bouncy mariachi tunes became hymns throughout Latin America and Spain and with Spanish speakers in the United States.
He brought many adoring fans to tears as they sang along when he crooned his songs about love and heartbreak, including his top hits “Hasta Que Te Conoci” (“Until I Met You”) and “Amor Eterno” (“Eternal Love”). His hit “Querida” (“Dear”) topped Mexico’s charts for a whole year.
Gabriel, a flamboyant performer whose real name was Alberto Aguilera Valadez, liked to wear jackets covered in sequins or dress in shiny silk outfits in hot pink, turquoise blue or canary yellow, and he was known for tossing his head before dancing or jumping around the stage.
“He has passed on to become part of eternity and has left us his legacy through Juan Gabriel, the character created by him for all the music that has been sung and performed all around the world,” his press office said in a statement.
It gave no details on his death. Publicist Arturo de la Mora told The Associated Press that he died at 11:30 a.m. in his home. He said the family would provide a statement later.
Gabriel performed to packed auditoriums, including New York’s Madison Square Garden and the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles. His last concert was Friday night at the Forum in Inglewood, Calif., near Los Angeles. He was scheduled to perform Sunday in El Paso.
Mexico’s president, Enrique Peña Nieto, said through his official Twitter account: “I regret the death of Juan Gabriel, one of the great musical icons of our country. My condolences to his relatives and friends.”
Gabriel broke ground in Mexico in 1990 by becoming the first commercial singer to present a show at Mexico City’s majestic Palace of Fine Arts, until then a forum reserved for classical musicians. The proceeds from the three sold-out concerts went to support the National Symphony Orchestra and became his most celebrated performances. His album “Juan Gabriel live from the Palace of Fine Arts” set record sales.
A six-time Grammy nominee, Gabriel was inducted into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame in 1996 and received countless industry awards — including ASCAP songwriter of the year in 1995 and Latin Recording Academy’s person of the year in 2009, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that same year.
The beloved singer, who was born Jan. 7, 1950, wrote his first song at age 13 and went on to compose more than 1,500 songs.
“There are no rules when I compose songs,” he said, according to a biography published by Mexico’s Society of Music Authors and Composers. “There are times when I’m really happy and I write something really sad, and vice versa.”
Artists across Latin America and in the United States covered many of his songs, including Paul Anka and Marc Anthony, who broke into the salsa music world in the U.S. with Gabriel’s “Hasta Que Te Conoci.”
Gabriel also wrote and produced albums for artists such as Mexican singer Lucha Villa and Spain’s Rocio Durcal.
The youngest of 10 children, he rose rags to riches. He was born in the western state of Michoacan. His father, Gabriel Aguilera, was a farmer and his mother, Victoria Valadez, a housewife. The family lost contact with his father after he was taken to a psychiatric hospital in Mexico City when Juan Gabriel was still a baby. Unable to support her children, his mother moved the family to the border city of Ciudad Juarez, where he grew up as she worked as a maid.
Unable to care for Juan, she sent him to an orphanage.
He said he wrote “Eternal Love,” one of his greatest hits, thinking about his mother, who died in 1974.
