Angela Alvarez is 95 years old. And he’s making his lifelong dream come true. She started in her native Cuba, where she learned to sing and play the piano from an early age. That same Cuba where later he was encouraged to play guitar and began writing his own songs.
And what began as a grandchild’s individual mission – to preserve grandma’s unedited musical legacy – ended up taking on an unexpected life: an album, a documentary, a role in a Hollywood movie and, to top it all off, a nomination for Latin Grammy Awards for Best New Artist.
Angela Alvarez lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in the United States, where the work of her husband, a mechanical engineer in the sugar industry, took her decades ago.
“I loved music very much,” he said Spanish billboard-. As a child I had two aunts who played the piano and taught me to sing. Whenever there was a family reunion, I was the artist; They made me clothes and I always enjoyed acting. “
father against
The music continued to grow with her. But his father would have been a useless restraint. When she Angela was about to graduate, her father asked her what she wanted to continue studying. She didn’t hesitate: “I want to be a singer”.
But her father did not find it an honorable profession. I said no. You sing for the family, but not for the world ”.
With no hard feelings, Alvarez recalls: “I loved him very much and obeyed him, I didn’t insist”. So she decided to postpone her dreams. Eventually, she found happiness in marriage and a family of her own – four children, nine grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren, she proudly lists.
Although obviously music has always been there and has helped her with the ups and downs of life: from love and motherhood, to the separation of almost two years from her children after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.
Angela was supposed to travel with them to the United States, but she was not allowed to board the plane. Years later, she had to add to her tireless efforts to reunite her family and the eventual loss of her beloved husband to cancer, that of her only child, also from the same disease.
the language of the soul
Angela Alvarez thinks he wrote about fifty songs. “Music is the language of the soul,” says the composer of break the yoke, desires, My big love (My big love) Y Directionless path (I wonder aimlessly)all included on his self-titled 15-track debut album, released independently (via Nana Album LLC) in June 2021.
“If I could break the chains that imprison you with so much power / How happy I would be, I would sing a hymn of peace”, he sings in Cuba, in Spanish, in the Afro-Cuban song of 1969 break the yoke.
“I wonder aimlessly, how sad it makes me / I wonder aimlessly without finding anything / I seek consolation, I seek peace”, he shouts in Cthey love aimlesslya Cuban bolero-son who wrote in 1978 after her husband’s death.
work of the grandson
for his grandson Carlos José Alvareza Los Angeles-based professional songwriter and producer who credits his love of music in large part to his grandmother, as her grandchildren call her, hearing so many of these songs grow was particularly impactful.
Although Angela had spent years without ever recording any of his works, he had an “epiphany” that prompted him to fly to Louisiana to document every single one of his songs, for “our family’s legacy”.
“I didn’t know there were so many, I had no idea,” remembers Carlos in the conversation with Scoreboard.
“When I got back to Los Angeles, that’s when I clicked. I called her and said, ‘Nana, do you want to do this?’ First she said, ‘I’m not going to Los Angeles! For what?’. And I say: ‘To record your album!’ And she’s like, ‘Okay, there I am!’ “
But a few more years passed while he was still “waiting for the perfect time” to undertake the project, juggling family and work. Then, on a trip to Spain, producer Misha’al Al-Omar lit a fire beneath him, who looked him in the eye and asked bluntly, “Are you waiting for me to die? […] Whatever you need, we’ll do it. “
“I owe that man the credit for waking me up,” says Carlos of Al-Omar, a close friend and producer of the album. “I came back from Spain, called her and said ‘Nana, I’m already making arrangements. You’ll come to Los Angeles, we’ll do it. ‘”
With his grandmother on board, he began calling musicians he knew to add to the project. “These are my friends and people I admire, the best of the best,” says Carlos of the professionals he has recruited. “I play their music and they can’t believe it. They were impressed. They were like, ‘Are these your songs? They sound like classics, but I’ve never heard them before! ‘”
The entrance of actor Andy Garcia
His grandson also contacted Cuban-American actor and musician Andy Garcia, who was very impressed and immediately agreed to join the project.
So much so that he was not only executive producer and narrator of a documentary on Álvarez, Miss Angela but also invited her to appear in his remake of the father of the bride like Tía Pili (Aunt Pili) and sing love me very much as part of the soundtrack.
“His story shocked me: represents a generation, perhaps our best generation of Cubans”, Says García of Álvarez in Miss Angela. The appointment starts when García presents Álvarez before his concert at the historic Avalon in Los Angeles, his first concert, on his 91st birthday, where the actor also played bongos with the band.
“Ladies and gentlemen, join me to finally make a teenager’s dream come true and please welcome the star of tonight’s show singing her own songs, the extraordinarily talented and sublimely beautiful Mrs. Ángela Álvarez, ”continues Garcia.
The Grammy nomination
As for how Ángela Álvarez ended up with a Latin Grammy nomination in one of the most coveted categories, her grandson explains that it was Al-Omar’s idea. “She said, ‘Do you know how appropriate and surprising it would be if she were nominated as the best new artist at her age? Do you know the message she would send to the world? ‘”, Remembers Carlos.
“And we laugh! We sent it and two days ago I got a text message: “Congratulations!” And I’m like, ‘For what !?’ And I realized, based on the person who was writing, and I said “Absolutely not!” […] It’s unimaginable. “
Even Angela couldn’t believe it. “It was a great surprise. but very pretty, and then I thought it all my dreams had come true. At 95, but it doesn’t matter”He says laughing.
Now, both grandmother and grandson plan to attend the Latin Grammy celebrations in Las Vegas the third week of November, where Álvarez is expected to perform at the Best New Artists exhibition on the 15th and attend the awards ceremony on the 17th.
“I hope the whole project inspires young people to sit down and talk to the elderly. Ask them questions. Ask them about the dreams they once had. They will be surprised at what they find, ”concludes Carlos. “If we don’t ask them, they won’t tell us and their wisdom and their dreams will accompany them.”
Source: Clarin
