Angela Alvarez, the Cuban singer-songwriter who made history in 2022 by winning the Latin Grammy for best new artist as a nonagenarian, died Thursday night (Dec. 5), her grandson, composer and producer Carlos José Alvarez, informed Billboard Español. She was 97.
She passed away peacefully in Baton Rouge, La., surrounded by her family and loved ones, added the musician, who produced her 15-track self-titled debut album, released independently (via Nana Album LLC) in June 2021. A cause of death was not provided.
“I feel so lucky to have shared our grandmother with the world. She was a gift to me,” Carlos José said. “What we accomplished together was extraordinary. She is an example of courage, love and the importance of keeping dreams alive. She taught us how art can heal in times of adversity.”
He added: “Being able to work with her changed my life. The gift I thought I was giving her, was actually a gift she gave to me and in turn the world. She always said, ‘I want to leave this world knowing my music would live on,’ and it will. Her life was full and her legacy shines on.”
Born on June 13, 1927, in Camagüey, Cuba, Angela Alvarez learned to sing and play the piano early on, and later took on the guitar and started writing her own songs. “I loved music very much,” she told Billboard Español in November 2022 from Baton Rouge, where the work of her husband, a mechanical engineer in the sugar industry, took her decades ago. “When I was a child, I had two aunts that played the piano and taught me how to sing. Whenever there was a family gathering, I was the artist; they made dresses for me and I always liked to perform.”
She came to consider music as a profession after finishing high school, but neither her father — nor her husband, years later — found that kind of life suitable for her. So she moved on with her life. Music, nevertheless, was always there for her, as it helped her cope with the ups and downs of life: from love and motherhood to a near-two-year separation from her children after the Cuban Revolution triumph, when she was supposed to travel to the U.S. with them but was not allowed to board the plane; to her relentless efforts to reunite her family and the eventual loss of her beloved husband and, years later, of her only daughter — both to cancer.
“I think that music is the language of the soul,” Alvarez said in the same interview with Billboard, estimating at the time that she had written around 50 songs, including “Romper el Yugo” (“Break the Chains”), “Añoranzas” (“Yearnings”), “Mi Gran Amor” (“My Great Love”) and “Camino Sin Rumbo” (“I Wonder Aimlessly”), all included in that first and only album that led to her improbable nomination for best new artist and her eventual victory — in a tie with Silvana Estrada, who was 70 years younger.
Angela not only impressed the Latin Recording Academy and its voting members. During the album’s recording process, her grandson invited Andy García to listen to her songs, and the Cuban-American actor and musician not only ended up executive producing and narrating a documentary about her titled Miss Angela, but also invited her to appear in his remake of Father of the Bride as Tía Pili and sing “Quiéreme Mucho” as part of the soundtrack.
Angela Alvarez is survived by three children (her only daughter died years ago), nine grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.
