Dakota Beacon

There is enough distressing news to write about here every day.  Once in a while there is even something hopeful which gives us some cheer and courage.  Today, though, I must report something which is truly a sad milepost, the passing of one of the truly great singers of our time.

I admit I came late to admiring the artistry and genius of Jose Jose.  It was quite by accident. I found one of his albums on CD and thought it would help me in my Spanish.  I figured from the cover that it would be sort of a pop thing but good conversational Spanish. The handsome, boyish face that looked sharply out from the cover suggested this.  When I put it on and listened for the first time I was transfixed.  

I have always loved great singing.  Maybe it was the Mario Lanza films I saw as a toddler.  But I have loved the art of singing for as long as I can remember.  It seems to me that the best way an instrument can be played is so as to bring the spirit of song from within it.  Some of my best musical experiences have included hearing Richard Tucker, Sherill Milnes, Cornell MacNeill and Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills and Richard Fredericks live.  These were unforgettable moments. But they did not surpass the art of the (then) young vocalist on the album I found.  It is not exaggeration to say that Jose Jose might well have been the finest vocalist known to us today.

Intrigued, I began to read about Jose Jose, born Jose Romulo Sosa Ortiz in Mexico City to a mother who was a concert pianist and a father who was a star of the National Opera and had sung with the greats of La Scala.  His father abandoned Jose and his brother and mother, his life destroyed by alcoholism and a neurotic temperament which prevented him from realizing the rewards of his considerable talent. His experience as a musician and singer had been so difficult and strained that he refused to allow his sons to study music.

Obedient at first to his father’s wishes, Jose made several attempts to attain an education in a different profession but fate and his incredible musical gifts eventually drove him to his destiny as a world-acclaimed singer. He found he could contribute to his family’s upkeep by singing serenades in the streets.   He loved opera and was advised to pursue a career in that discipline, but he lacked the money to study. Although he unfortunately followed his father’s example for a time, unlike Jose Sosa Esquivel, he managed to turn his life around and make it a force for good for many.  His father was never to know of his son's phenomenal success; he died of cirrhosis at age 45.  

I’m going to pause a moment here to offer you a glimpse of the young Jose Jose, at the moment his talent was first realized - “La Nave del Olvido” (“The Ship of Oblivion”) was his first hit recording, in 1969.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf6cyDfi8t8

The second Festival de la Cancion Latina, was the setting, March 15, 1970, for his electrifying performance of a very dramatic and technically difficult song, written expressly for him by Roberto Cantoral - “El Triste”, (“The Sad One”).  The audience was shocked that the song as performed by him did not take first place.  In fact it was third. But the public outcry only fueled his stardom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DobtttN_vc

Before I go on to the end of my story, please listen - as critically as you like - to the skill obvious in “Del Altar a la Tumba” (“From the Altar to the Tomb”), and note the vocal range, color, phrasing, dynamics, dramatic quality and his ability to execute the kind of vocal gymnastics demanded by the song.  I invite you to compare it to any of your favorite operatic tenors of any era. https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=jose+jose+del+altar+a+la+tumba#id=1&vid=a2a13c3b3c8be64cf5f32ce1cdaf3efb&action=click

A career of fabulous hits, international acclaim and flawless performances followed, but also a personal and financial life riddled with betrayals and threats to his health.  Exhaustion from relentless touring combined with abuse of cocaine and alcohol in response to a highly stressful public and private life left him, in 1991, divorcing his wife of 14 years and mother of his two children, Anel, and spiraling into a deep depression.  Friends, alarmed at his condition at the peak of his professional career, with special tributes held in his honor in his homeland and throughout Latin America, found him sleeping in abandoned cars and wanting nothing more than to drink until he died. Fortunately they persuaded him to enter a rehab program in Minnesota.  This time it took. He survived his rehab and recreated his life. In 1995 he married his third wife and they had a daughter. He devoted himself to helping others overcome addiction and restart their lives as he had himself through the help of his devoted friends.

Although in awe of his immense talent and his meteoric career, his fans perhaps loved him even more for his legendary humility and compassion for others.  He never missed an opportunity to thank others and God for his success. The years he spent, following his own rehab, helping those struggling with alcohol addiction to restore their lives endeared him to many.  His courage in making at least two movies which depicted his own failures and rehabilitation, unfaltering in its honesty was a hallmark of Jose Jose. Also legendary was his generosity and innate kindness. On one occasion, it was told, he was at a nice restaurant enjoying a family dinner and saw an apparently homeless woman looking through the window.  He asked the staff to invite “the lovely lady outside” in to join them. He did not only pay for her dinner. He invited her to dine with him and his family at their table.  

As his singing style developed many of Latin America’s greatest song writers wrote especially for him.  He increased in range and with time became associated with “love lost”, ballads such as “Cirano”, “El”, “Lagrimas”, “Payaso”, “El Amor Acaba”, and occasionally something delightfully upbeat - “Piel de Azucar”, “Buenos Dias, Amor”as well as “40 y 20”, about May-December romance.  His talents were not limited to interpreting the works of great songwriters.  His acting abilities were showcased in numerous movies and he won an Emmy for his role as “Erasmo” in Mexico’s great telenovela, “La Fea Mas Bella”, as Lety’s devoted but upstanding father.

Jose Jose’s cruelest trial was that at the height of his career he lost his ability to sing. Despite comebacks (early in his career pneumonia paralysed his thoracic diaphragm and he had to relearn breathing), the constant work and substance abuse took its toll.  In his last years he had been having difficulty with speech as well, having recovered from stroke, facial paralysis, and suffering other serious illness - emphysema, diabetes, vision problems and finally pancreatic cancer. The sudden critical illness of his wife, Sarita Salazar, who suffered a massive stroke, nearly bankrupted him but they remained there for each other.  His financial difficulties were not kept a secret, nor had his many personal difficulties. One more song was written for him. Yanni wrote something special. After his singing career was virtually ended, Jose Jose longed for an opportunity to walk out on stage, embrace his audience once more and give them one last performance. Yanni wrote “Volver a Creer” (“Believe Again”) for him.  Appearing resplendant in a white tux (he was invariably elegantly stylish), it was a real fight for him to do justice to the song he had inspired, but he did and his fans loved him for it.   https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=tightropetb&p=jose+jose+with+yanni#id=2&vid=91f909af6c38074dab5a74005fc65af1&action=view

I know I’ve linked a lot of songs here.  It’s up to you, but you’d be richly rewarded if you hear them and if you google a few more.

On Saturday, Jose Jose’s journey with us came to an end and he was claimed, at age 71, by the cancer he had fought for two and a half years.  He leaves behind his wife Sarita, with whom he finally seemed to have found personal peace, his children, Jose Joel, Marysol Estrella and Sara, and one “hijo supuesto” (Colombian singer Manuel Jose claims to be his son - a claim which Jose Jose himself appeared to welcome, although genetic testing did not bear out the claim, to the seeming disappointment of both).  Troubled by his personal demons he remained devoted to his family and one might find it an insight into his character that his professional stage name, “Jose Jose”, signified his own identity and also honored the memory of the father, Jose Sosa Esquivel, who had abandoned him at 14, and from whom he would be the first to tell you he had inherited his voice.  

Mil gracias, Jose Jose, y que descanse en paz con Dios.

Comments:  Sally Morris - (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)