José Feliciano

José Feliciano is one of the most virtuosic guitarists and one of the best-loved voices Latin music has produced, and a man who spent his life building bridges.

Between the Latin world and the English-speaking one. Between Spanish and English. Between genres nobody put together.

Blind from birth, he learned to play by ear to a level that leaves you open-mouthed, mixing flamenco, jazz and folk with astonishing speed and precision.

But his story also has two episodes that make it unforgettable: someone else's song that he made his own, and a piece of daring that cost him dearly.

From Lares to the world

He was born in 1945 in Lares, a town in Puerto Rico, the fourth of eleven brothers, into a desperately poor family. He was born blind, from congenital glaucoma.

When he was five the family emigrated to New York, to Spanish Harlem, and there, in poverty and darkness, the boy found his light.

At seven he taught himself the accordion. At nine his father gave him his first guitar, and he never let go of it: he learned by ear, listening to records over and over until he could reproduce every note.

He left high school at seventeen to support the family, and as a teenager he played the cafés of Greenwich Village, the same bohemian neighbourhood where the music of the sixties was being cooked up.

From there he went out into the world, a virtuoso of the nylon-string Spanish guitar, capable of things few sighted guitarists manage.

He turned Jim Morrison's fire around

In 1968 The Doors, the band of Jim Morrison, had an enormous hit with "Light My Fire", a rock song, electric, blazing.

Feliciano was offered the chance to record his own version. And he did something bold: he turned the song completely around.

He unplugged it. He made it slow, sensual, he filled it with his Spanish guitar and with Latin jazz phrasing.

Where Morrison roared, Feliciano caressed.

The result was so beautiful and so different that it became a worldwide hit in its own right. It reached number three in the United States and won him two Grammy awards in 1969: best new artist and best male pop vocal performance.

It is one of the loveliest cases in music: a performer who takes someone else's song and reinvents it so thoroughly that it becomes his as well.

Morrison provided the fire. Feliciano showed the world that the same fire could burn slowly, and in Spanish.

The daring that cost him dearly

But that same year, 1968, he lived through the most painful episode of his career, and one that says a great deal about the cost of being a pioneer.

Ernie Harwell, the radio voice of the Detroit Tigers, invited him to sing the United States national anthem at the fifth game of the World Series, on 7 October, at Tiger Stadium. Feliciano was twenty-three.

And he did not sing it in the solemn, military manner of always. He sang it his own way, slow, with his guitar, with the soul of folk and of soul music, putting feeling into it instead of a march.

Today it would seem normal to us. In 1968 it was a national scandal.

There were boos mixed with applause. The switchboards at the stadium and at the television network collapsed under protest calls. The press of the day spoke of desecration and of an unpatriotic gesture, and there were people who called for his deportation. According to Feliciano himself and later coverage, several radio stations stopped playing his records.

He, an immigrant, a blind Puerto Rican who loved his adopted country, said afterwards that he was devastated by the rejection.

And there is a perfect coda almost nobody tells: his label released that performance as a single, taking advantage of the scandal, and it reached number fifty on the Billboard chart. It was the first time in history that the United States national anthem had entered the chart.

Time proved him right. Today critics routinely cite it as the precedent that allowed artists such as Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston to perform the anthem in their own style. And in 2018, fifty years later, he sang it again in Detroit and was given a standing ovation.

He paid the price of being first, and because of that the ones who came after him were able to be free.

The eternal bridge

And he still had his most lasting gift to give.

In 1970 he wrote a simple little song, half in Spanish and half in English, wishing you a merry Christmas and prosperity.

"Feliz Navidad" is among the twenty-five most played and most recorded Christmas songs in the world according to ASCAP, and among the twenty most streamed on Spotify. But there is one fact that surprises people: its mass success is recent. It did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 until January 2017, and it reached its peak, number six, in December 2020, half a century after he recorded it.

With that simple, joyful song, Feliciano did what he did all his life: he built a bridge. He put Spanish into English-speaking homes at the most tender time of the year, and he taught millions of people who do not speak a word of Spanish to sing "feliz Navidad" with a smile.

What to remember

José Feliciano is the proof that talent knows no barriers — not blindness, not language, not the borders of genre — and that daring to do things your own way, even when it costs you, ends up opening the road for those who come next.

If you put on his version of "Light My Fire", "Feliz Navidad", "Qué será" or "La copa rota", you are going to hear a prodigious guitarist and a warm voice that spent a lifetime joining worlds.

A blind, poor boy from Lares who learned to see with his ears, who turned a Jim Morrison song around, who endured rejection for singing differently and came through it, and who gave the whole planet a way to wish each other a merry Christmas.

Few musicians have built so many bridges. And he crossed every one of them playing.

Sources

José Montserrate Feliciano García (Lares, Puerto Rico, 10 September 1945), singer, songwriter and guitarist, blind from birth from congenital glaucoma; the fourth of eleven brothers, he emigrated with his family to New York at the age of five. He taught himself the accordion at seven and received his first guitar at nine; he left high school at 17 to support his family and played the cafés of Greenwich Village. A virtuoso of the nylon-string Spanish guitar, he fuses pop, bolero, jazz, soul, folk and rock. His version of The Doors' "Light My Fire", from the album "Feliciano!" (1968), reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 — and number one in several countries — and won him two Grammy awards at the 11th ceremony, in 1969: Best New Artist and Best Contemporary Male Pop Vocal Performance. On 7 October 1968 he performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the fifth game of the World Series, at Tiger Stadium in Detroit, at the invitation of the announcer Ernie Harwell, in a slow version with guitar and a folk and jazz style. The negative reaction is documented: boos mixed with applause, the collapse of the switchboards at the stadium and at NBC, and press coverage that spoke of the "desacralisation" of the anthem. The claim that several radio stations stopped playing his music is widely repeated but has no primary source identifying specific stations, and is given here as attributed. RCA released the performance as a single and it reached number 50 on the Billboard chart, the first time the United States national anthem had entered it. The idea that he opened the way for the later personal versions by Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston is a widely shared critical judgement, not a documented fact. In 2018 he performed it again in Detroit, this time to a standing ovation, and the 1968 recording is preserved at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. "Feliz Navidad", written and recorded in 1970 with the producer Rick Jarrard, is among the 25 most played and most recorded Christmas songs in the world according to ASCAP and among the twenty most streamed on Spotify; it did not enter the Billboard Hot 100 until 7 January 2017 and reached its peak, number 6, in December 2020. He entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2010. Figures for his discography vary by source between "more than 50" and "almost seventy" albums, and those for his Grammy awards between the 7 credited by the Recording Academy and the 9 listed on his official site. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from Wikipedia, Britannica, AllMusic, SABR, Smithsonian, Grammy.com and other press coverage.