By Leila Cobo | Billboard.com – May 16, 2024
How a lost 1986 recording will finally be released, marking the launch of the centennial of Cruz’s birth.
South Florida radio personality Albertico Rodríguez was cleaning out his closet last year when he found something unexpected: an audio reel recording of Celia Cruz, from a live show at the now defunct Casanova Club in Miami in 1986 or 1987.
Rodríguez, who emceed many shows in which the legendary Cruz performed, had recorded this particular performance, put it away and forgotten about it. Now, almost 21 years after Cruz’s death, he had an unexpected treasure in his hands: a previously unknown recording of Celia Cruz, an extremely rare commodity in 2024.
Rodríguez immediately took it to Omer Pardillo Cid, the executor and trustee of Cruz’s estate, and Nelson Albareda, the CEO of Loud and Live (and Billboard‘s Latin executive of the year in 2023), which represents the Celia Cruz estate. Albareda purchased a machine to digitize the reel recording, and then, the three men sat down to listen.
“I didn’t cry, but I was clearly excited,” says Albareda, who worked with Cruz as a young assistant when he started in the music business over three decades ago. “Not only was the recording quality great, but it had hits like ‘Quimbara.’” Albareda set to work, restoring and remastering the music, a process that took nearly a year to complete.
Now, on May 24, that recording will see the light of day as an album titled En Vivo: 100 Años de Azúcar, to be released in digital format, as a standard vinyl and as a limited edition collector’s box set that will also include a coffee table book and exclusive photographs of Cruz. The nine-track album will feature “Químbara,” a signature Cruz song, as the lead single.