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N. Raghuraman, Management Guru
It was Thursday, November 17, 2022. Michelob Ultra Arena, one of Las Vegas’ richest bay-side resorts and casinos. The venue was gearing up for a spectacular evening as it hosted the 23rd Latin Grammy Awards.
Awards were being announced one after the other, such as Best Song, Best Lyrics and many other categories. And then came the category called Best New Artist. The announcer began, “Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in making a teenage girl’s dream come true and welcome the star of tonight’s show… She sings her own songs and is exceptionally talented and Angela Alvarez is very beautiful…’ and saying this they start clapping.
Angela, sitting in the audience, cannot believe it. She says with surprise, “Carlos, it’s me.” After that she could not speak a single word as emotions were flowing from her eyes. As soon as she stood up, thunderous applause echoed in the entire auditorium.
Angela’s 15-song debut album, due out in 2021, echoes the Havana nightclub sounds of the 1930s-1940s with a jazzy fusion of Caribbean, African, European rhythms. As she walked towards the stage, everyone in the audience stood up to celebrate her victory. Not because English- and Spanish-language publications had chronicled her journey from a house-cleaner to the awards stage, but because of her age. Guess what their age should be?
While you can guess their age, let me introduce Angela. She is a Cuban-born American singer and songwriter. For years he sang only for his family. Whenever there was a family function, she was the only artiste in it.
He would send plane tickets for her, get her clothes made, and Angela also loved performing. But whenever she told her father that she wanted to become a singer, he refused saying that you sing for the family and that is enough. She did not go to college because she had to take care of her father, who refused to send her to music school.
From the age of 12, she always carried a pencil and paper with her wherever she went. She used to write songs even while doing daily chores. After the song was completed, he felt inspired to sing the same song. She would pick up the guitar and start singing.
Each of her songs was written in the sonorous and melodious vocabulary of the world in which she was growing up. He got married at a very young age and had children. Fearing that Fidel Castro’s communist government might separate the children from their families, she and her husband deported their children to the United States in 1962 under Operation Pedro Pan.
This was a humanitarian program, under which children were kept in foster-care. Both of them remained in Cuba. Now you must be getting an idea of his age. But believe me you will be wrong again. After a few years his family was reunited.
In 2009, her grandson Carlos (whom she called on the awards night) brought her a microphone and began recording her songs for the family from her thousands of notes. His life was shown as a documentary in 2021.
Her album was released the same year and she was played by Cuban actress Andy Gracia, who was also a producer on the film. She was 95 at that awards ceremony and died last Friday at the age of 97!
The bottom line is that It is never too late to gain international recognition in life. Angela is the oldest winner of any music award ever announced!
