Marc Anthony wore sunglasses because behind the dark glasses to Stevie Wonder were hiding two red, swollen eyes. The salsero horse, as Carlos Vives calls it, has received the night of this Wednesday a prize in the highest: the Latin American music industry has recognized it as the Person of the Year. Marco Antonio Muñiz, his real name, has been breaking the charts for decades every summer and making his hips move halfway around the world. This Wednesday, however Latino the event was in Las Vegas, most of the attendees did not get up from their chair until the Puerto Rican trumpet was not started.
“They told me that it was better not to speak, to dedicate myself to singing,” the artist was justified, visibly excited, shortly before closing the concert. For an hour and a half a dozen music stars in Spanish and friends of the singer of Vivir mi vida performed their best known songs.
Thus appeared on the stage a Laura Pausini on the verge of suffocation while singing Now who. After a pause, the Italian managed to say a few words to him: “I have not been able to sing this song for a long time, I congratulate you, my friend, from Italy until now, you are my heart and my voice.” He was followed by the king of the vallenato, Carlos Vives, with an ephemeral performance of the song El Cantante, an old and not so well known single of the honoree.
Some 1,400 people were dining while the tables of Latin music were playing on the tables: from Diego Torres or Johny Ventura, salsa giant Gilberto Santarrosa, Mexicans Jesse & Joe and Fonseca, to Cubans Gente de Zona. And at the tables, first, fried avocado salad and citrus; second, a fillet of spine with a spice on a bed of rice and beans; third, a musical note of chocolate. And for dessert, Ricky Martin.
“I have an anecdote with Marc. I met him at an airport in 1987, he was the producer of the Menudo group [of which Ricky Martin was a member] when he had long hair and that walk …”, he remembered excitedly the one who sang that of Living the crazy life. “And I still keep everything you taught me in the studio today,” says the singer, also Puerto Rican, and when he does, his chin shakes. And, as if he were whispering to Marc Anthony himself, he goes to him: “Look, Marc, the whole industry has come together to celebrate you, crazy. I love that you are Latino, that you have so much strength.”
The event, which started delayed by a failure in the system, is the starting signal of the XVII edition of the Latin Grammys. From the error, Academy president Gabriel Abaroa blamed the newly elected US president: “It may have been the new president’s first attempt to boycott Latinos.” But it did not take long to finish: “Donald Trump peeled it [could not with us]”.
The anteroom of the party
Sergio George, the producer of Marc Anthony (and Jennifer Lopez or Prince Royce), gave the vision of who worked with him in the front row, a few hours before the concert began, on the red carpet of the event, rewarding Anthony’s entire career despite being in top form was “a tremendous idea”. “This was going to be a hit.There are no tickets.The demand to see this was huge like the singers who have joined.It is a singer who has an impressive career and still remains in force on the radio.It is not missing like others, it is something you do not see every day. ”
“He’s a very passionate singer,” said the man behind many of Anthony’s great productions. When explaining the work with Anthony, George said: “Musically, I have to leave that space to him. You have to not get in the way, leave that space and as a producer to support the musical part when he is not singing, to complement it There is a lot of pressure, because as he sings so loud and with so much passion, musically I have to maximize that and give my best to keep up with him, because with a tremendous voice, it shows a lot when the music is poor.
Anthony’s great contribution to Latin music has been, in his producer’s opinion, “how to sing with tropical music, so that those who are not fans of tropical music buy it.” Marc sells to people who do not he likes salsa.Transcend the genre.It is he and the passion with which he sings.In a song he can put salsa, bolero, up to three genres.That has never been seen, nor do I think it will be seen again. ”
Other major producers of Latin music were also on the red carpet to give praise of authority to Marc Anthony. Argentinean Cachorro López, producer of Andrés Calamaro, Julieta Venegas and Diego Torres, said that Anthony “was like modernism within Caribbean rebel music, it’s a very good choice as a Person of the Year.” Lopez is nominated with his group, Meteors, for the di