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[traffic noises]
[**]
Jose: A successful artist
who came out of there with nothing.
I said, "Boy, Jose,
man, you've come a long way.
[crowd booing]
- It was the time of McCarthy, wasn't it?
If you did something against the grain of American "culture,"
you were an outcast.
I had to fight to get him signed because they said,
"We don't want this Puerto Rican kid who can't see.
What are we going to do with him?"
- So it was a different time in America.
There was a lot of ignorance. This Puerto Rican Latino
has messed with our national anthem.
He's thinking, "250 million people hate me."
- So he played it more negro,
more Black.
Back then, people who were not ready, they're probably still not ready now.
[hectic crowd]
- In the sixties,
being commercial, particularly on something as traditional
as "The Star-Spangled Banner,"
was really kind of a kiss of death.
- Had Jose come out and just done your typical anthem,
he wouldn't have created something and opened the door for artists
that then did the anthem in their way.
- He did something that was very Jose Feliciano.
He was honest. It was never lack of respect.
I don't think anyone loves this country more than him.
[**]
Jose: I never thought I would cause that much of a ruckus.
AWARD FOR MUSICAL EXCELLENCE
I wasn't out to defame
the country that has given me
the opportunity to be successful.
[**]
- When he took that song, "Light My Fire,"
as big as it was by The Doors,
he was able to introduce it to 500 million people
that didn't know The Doors.
- I think that's what sets an artist apart from a singer.
So many people that can sing
and in the stratosphere and do all these amazing technical things,
but you won't remember their voice the next day.
There's very few people that do that, and he's one of them.
[**]
[crowd cheering]
[**]
- The main reason why Jose has gone global
is because of one thing and one thing alone.
His heart.
He has the gift of being multidimensional.
- But Jose sang in both languages
and equally as genuinely.
Every interview that I've done, when they ask me about influences,
Jose is at the top there because he was one of the first to do it.
- He brought a sound that was totally different because he brought the blues
and the jazz and the Latino.
- I thought of him as a unique, brilliantly talented,
I have to say, freak.
[**]
- His music
is beyond borders.
I've seen Jose move a crowd in Portugal,
AWARD FOR MUSICAL EXCELLENCE
and I've seen him move a crowd in Australia
and London, Canada and Buenos Aires.
I have a great musician friend of mine who always says,
"They're all legends until you work with them."
Well, guess what?
I've worked with Jose Feliciano, and he's a true legend.
- The real true legacy that Jose is leaving to the world
is that you can accomplish anything you want,
no matter how adverse the situations and conditions that you are in,
if you have a desire and the discipline
and just do it.
- I wish there were a word
that was more appropriate than a legend,
but he is a legend and so much more
around the world.
JOSE FELICIANO SQUARE
[crowd cheering] [**]
[helicopter whirring]
[**]
* He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four *
* He fights with missiles and with spears *
* He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen *
* He's been a soldier for a thousand years *
* He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain *
* A Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew *
[fanfare]
Broadcaster: New York, the sightseers' paradise.
Manhattan alone has a little bit of everything.
New York has every nationality
because millions of immigrants who came to this country stayed right here.
In Washington Square, at the lower end of Fifth Avenue,
in Greenwich Village,
folk dancers and folk singers
express their freedom... ...freedom and joy in living.
Man: You may call me a rebel.
But I'm an American rebel,
and you'll have to listen. To hear me out.
- There was conflict
on both sides of the line.
[**]
You never trusted anyone over 30.
The hippies didn't know what they were doing.
The Vietnam War was raging on.
People were burning their draft cards.
Burning the flag. That was, "Oh!" You know.
- And people at the time, you know, you've got to realize
the ambiance that was happening at the time.
It was a lot more restricted in people expressing themselves.
You're coming out of the 1950s
where even kids didn't have their own music.
That's why rock 'n roll exploded because up until that time,
they listened to the music of their parents.
They didn't have anything that was their own.
[**]
Jose: Every kid wanted to be like Frank Sinatra
until an Elvis came along, and we all thought
we were little Elvises.
We all tried to move our hips.
Only my hips said to me,
"You've got to learn to do something better."
I like Bob Dylan.
And one of my favorite albums changed my life
and that was Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.
And I started to listen to rock and roll
as it was being born.
To the blues, the doo-wop sound.
But my favorite vocal group
of all time has been The Four Seasons.
Those Four Seasons taught me about music.
You know, get the dream started. Get it going.
If you want to sound like somebody, do it.
I wanted to be a Latin musician
with American stylings.
It's funny, all of that music ever said to me was,
"I am poor, just like you."
And I could relate.
[**]
- Lares is a town founded in 1827.
It's a small town.
Nowadays, we have developed and it's bigger.
LARES ICE-CREAM PARLOR
[chattering]
- At the time, it was my mother
and her relatives, my grandmother,
who I remember with fondness.
I enjoyed memories in Puerto Rico
like eating fresh bread,
having freshly made cheese.
I remember things from Puerto Rico that were of the farm.
And instead of making septic tanks
like they do now in homes,
we had what we called a latrine.
We had to even make our own latrine.
It was really surviving.
Puerto Rico was so, so poor.
When you're a little kid like that, in a sense,
you don't know what end is up.
But the memories I have are happy
because they were always filled with music.
[**]
REVOLUTION SQUARE
JOSE FELICIANO SQUARE
- My name is Jimmy Feliciano, age 54.
I'm Jose's youngest brother.
He likes to make tricks to me.
He puts his eyeglasses in my glass of water.
And tell me: "Here, Jimmy, here's a glass of water".
And when I see the eyes, I just scream, I get crazy.
He's always doing things like that.
He used to come a lot more when my mother was alive.
But we still get in touch.
And when he comes around to a concert,
or he comes to something else in Puerto Rico,
we get in contact and we get together.
[**]
- My parents wouldn't let me go in the street,
and I thought, there must be
a real danger here, so I'm not going in the street.
I wasn't just blind. I was a blind kid that had sense.
And my feet were the eyes that guided me.
That's why now, as a grown up,
I don't trip on cables on stage.
I find it... how stupid that these people
don't pay attention to their body.
Their body is going to tell you to be careful.
So I grew up as a blind person who didn't bump into walls.
And if I did, I yelled at myself. I said,
"You should have been paying attention."
I was trying to really adapt
into the sighted world because as a blind person, you have to.
]
[**]
- My name is Hector Feliciano,
Jose Feliciano's brother. My age is... going on 60.
They're very proud of Jose.
As Jose grew and became more famous,
he also let them know
he was Puerto Rican, he's from Lares,
he's a teacher, he's an inspirer.
He has given an education to the world
in the line of music
because he has a love and passion for what he does.
IN HONOR OF JOSE FELICIANO
THE BLIND MAN OF LARES
-Welcome to your hometown. -Thanks. Are you the mayor now?
-Yes, sir. How are you? -I'm fine, thank God.
I was born with many illnesses and He never abandoned me.
- He gave you more blessings than illnesses.
- Exactly.
That's why I never blamed God for being blind.
On the contrary, I get up in the morning and the first thing I do
is thank God for giving me one more day.
I can't believe all of this heroes-type welcome.
This little town thinks I'm a hero to them.
Frankly, I'm a little embarrassed by it,
but that's just me and my idiosyncrasies.
To think that when I came
out of here at five years old,
later in my life, I would create
such havoc, you know. And I'm thrilled.
[**]
Well, I remember flying from Puerto Rico
into New York in 1950,
which was a time when the Puerto Rican migration
into the States was happening.
America had opportunities
that Puerto Rico didn't have.
[traffic noises]
My father got us into a cab
that we were taking into the East side.
We smelled something rotten.
Nature was rotten.
We lived high up
and we had no elevators.
So we had to use our legs to get up those stairs.
The steam wouldn't give you enough heat
in the winter.
It was awful.
But I thought of that when I was a young kid.
I thought, "Oh, my goodness, what am I doing here?
I got to find a way out."
[**]
My aunt Blanca was very instrumental
in me being able to go to places
like The Lighthouse for the Blind
when I was about five and a half.
They had a music curriculum.
I started on the accordion when I was seven.
I learned about string instruments through my uncle,
Esteban, who played the cuatro.
[ cuatroguitar playing]
The first guitar I ever had
was a friend of Blanca's and my father's.
He came in one day
and I heard a brown paper bag and it was a guitar.
[**]
I started learning guitar at the age of nine.
It was like...
It was like meeting the woman of your dreams.
I divorced one wife, but I've never divorced any guitar.
So with logic like that...
[**]
Then I started listening to music
outside the Puerto Rican realm.
I started listening to not just Tito Rodriguez
and Tito Puente and Celia Cruz.
And, you know, I love these people,
but I knew there was another musical world out there.
Dad did not support me playing
music outside the Latin music.
My father bounced around from job to job,
and it's sad because Dad was an intelligent man.
My aunt, his sister, wanted to make sure
he got into college somehow.
Dad, I think in some ways
denied himself
of becoming a brilliant man.
- Coming from extraordinary poverty,
Pop was a piece of work.
Difficult. He was probably the greater thorn
in Jose's side
than anybody
ever trying to live up
to some unspoken expectation.
You just feel as a child what your father,
especially as a young man, expects.
- My mom, yes, was a doting mom,
but she knew that the only thing
that would make me independent
was her teachings.
And so I listened and I learned a lot.
My mother was...
...no different than, I guess,
any mother who doesn't love a child.
- His mom...
had 11 boys.
She had to be tough to keep them all in line.
Granted, three passed away,
two in Puerto Rico, even before Jose was born,
and then one when they were in the city.
Mom tried to keep it all together.
She had great difficulty sometimes
accepting in the very beginning
that Jose was born with such problems.
His mom was beside herself.
"What am I going to do? What am I going to do? What am I going to do?"
You know, came to the point of just letting him go in the river,
you know, and just, just, just...
You know. I'm putting it in the kindest terms.
We all do numbers on our...
On each other.
He says he was unwanted and that's a terrible thing
for somebody to live through.
Jose: He left one time for a while
and then he came back.
Dad didn't abandon us in total.
I leaned on Esteban, I think, a little bit.
I would ask him when he came around
to please take me
to stay at his house.
It was a time period, but you know what?
Even today, you see it in many ways.
It's not easy.
- Jose has told me many times
that he could have spent his life selling pencils,
but instead he's worked eight, ten, 12 hours a day
practicing his guitar.
His father mentioned that he'd never amount to anything.
And I think, knowing Jose,
that his spirit is so strong
that he put that as a challenge
and he worked and worked at his craft
and became better and better.
- And so then the question then becomes, from a clinical perspective:
how do such individuals overcome
and from where does their ability to achieve come from?
It's that whole discourse of the clinical word we use as resilience,
the innate strength that people have
from individual to individual.
Some people have a little bit more of it,
some people have a little bit less.
It's not the it factor. It's not just about charisma.
It's part of our ability to just have inner core strength
to know who we are
and to rise above whatever adversity it is,
not because of who we are,
but in spite of who we are.
It appears that he more than likely had that innate resiliency factor
when he had so many cards stacked against who he was.
The reality is, yeah, there are challenges,
but if we don't have challenges in life, there's nothing to overcome.
[**]
about this contest
that was being sponsored by Cafe Bustelo.
You send in a letter talking
about the person you want to appear on that show.
At the age of nine,
I was playing the accordion.
I said, "Ma, they're not going to answer to you."
And my mother was,
"You wait and see. You wait and see."
My mother gets a letter and she goes,
"You going to be on the radio.
You going to be on the radio!"
I said, "Mom, really? I'm going to be on the radio?
Wow, that's great!"
[**]
It was WWRL.
It was a Black station.
The people there liked what I did,
and the prize in the contest
was to play for three days
in a famous theater.
The Latin people used it for their productions.
It was known as El Teatro Puerto Rico,
on Brook Avenue in the Bronx.
[crowd cheering]
I mean, the applause was amazing
for... for a little kid like me.
I mean, I...
I don't know why part of me was joyous,
and another part was a little embarrassed.
[**]
But it did tell me, you know,
"Kid, if you work at this,
something... something can happen."
And I was already learning the guitar,
practicing every day, listening to people like Ray Charles
for singing.
And I thought, "Ray Charles was blind.
If he can make it,
why couldn't Jose Feliciano make it?"
I said to myself, you know,
"If you could follow
what is being played on the radio, you're a professional."
[**]
My high school years were loaded with fears
because I didn't have anyone
qualified in my home
to read the textbooks to me.
And the schools didn't have them in Braille.
I mean, education for the blind was really limited.
Try and read Charles Dickens
when you're only 12 years old, it's difficult!
For example, David Copperfield
is a very depressing book.
I don't want to read about a family that was sick.
I saw that as a child within my family.
They always had headaches.
They always smelled to Vicks. [laughs]
In those days, you know,
you couldn't share your language
with your classmates.
They would go, "English, English!"
I understand that from their viewpoint, they didn't speak our language.
But what can you do when that's the only language you've learned in your life?
And of course, when I started learning the guitar,
it got more complicated
because I would say, "Ah, Jose, the hell with the homework,
practice the guitar.
That's what's going to get you far."
Teachers would say, "Mr. Feliciano,
if you don't study, you're not going to be very good in life.
You're not going to be educated."
I didn't back talk to my teachers,
but inside I would say,
"Well, that's what you think, that I'm not going to amount to much.
I'll show you." And I practiced the guitar even harder.
In high school, I'd play in the assemblies
and the kids loved it when I played the assemblies.
[**]
Girls threw themselves at me.
But as I couldn't see them, they fell. I couldn't catch them.
And they threatened to sue me because they fell. No!
If kids in my school thought I was good,
then I must be some good, you know?
- Three high school students, the staff tells me
they really have a sound that's all their own.
See, they're going to play a real old favorite, "Back Home In Indiana."
The Modern Sound Trio.
[**]
- The first time I saw him, I was with my mom
and we were watching the Ted Mack Hour... Amateur Hour.
And then with Ed Sullivan.
He went from Ted Mack to Ed Sullivan.
- The first true thing that I ever saw Jose do
was "Malagueña."
And I was a little kid, man,
but it just blew me away.
Especially there's a part where he just, like...
completely drops his hand
and starts just playing with one hand.
All these incredible parts.
]
[**]
- I learned watching Jose Feliciano
that he's not only an impeccable singer,
but a supreme guitar player.
[**]
Jose: When I left home at 18,
nobody in my family thought that I would be
the first one to leave home.
And so I left home at a young age,
never dreaming about what I would be doing.
- He is an extraordinary young man.
He is a fine singer,
an exceptional guitar player...
He's been blind since birth.
And he's going to play and sing for you.
"Walk Right In", Jose Feliciano. "Walk Right In."
[**]
- Everybody!
[**]
I decided to quit high school.
I wanted to go where the action was.
And then I moved up
to a bigger echelon.
I went and started playing Gerde's Folk City.
[**]
- Gerde's Folk City was a magnet
for musicians of every kind,
particularly in the early rock days and in folk.
And a lot of great people like Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul and Mary.
It was like the center of the Village for important upcoming artists.
[**]
- I did very well. They wouldn't let me off the stage.
And so the proprietor saw that.
He was a nice Italian gentleman and said,
"Hey, Jose. Come in here. I want to talk to you.
Hey, my name is Mike Porco.
You want to play for me or not?"
I said, "Well, Mr. Porco,
how much are you willing to pay me?"
He said, "I don't have to pay you.
If you become popular at Gerde's, maybe then we talk."
And from then on, that man and I
became the greatest of friends.
[**]
- I walked in because I had been sent to hear another group
and there was this young guy wearing dark glasses,
but not in any way did I think he was blind
because everybody in the Village wore dark glasses,
either they were on drugs or they were hung over or whatever.
I felt this was a raw,
amazing talent.
Seventeen years old, I think, at the time.
At the end of his act, his then companion
came over to the stage,
took his guitar and led him off, and I suddenly realized he's blind.
Discovering that night that he was blind,
put me into a complete new state of possibilities.
Not to exploit it, which I never did and never wanted to,
but it became a reality of our relationship, you know.
And I had to fight to get him signed because they said,
"We don't want this Puerto Rican kid who can't see.
What are we going to do with him?" They were really resistant.
And I remember being called in to by my boss and said,
"Look, you can sign him on one condition.
You get the cheapest deal you can."
So I did. I went to the legal department
and I had them write up the lowest rate contract we could get.
And they signed it because it was Jose's opportunity.
And in fact, there's a story in the book that Susan has written,
which I was not witness to.
I never even heard it until I read it in the book.
That he was called in by the executives
and told they wanted to change his name
from a Spanish name, Jose Feliciano,
to Joe Phillips or something like that.
And he refused because he is Puerto Rican
and proud of it,
and his heritage is there and his life has started there.
And I know I never I never had
any inclination to change him in any way at all,
except to make him grow or help him grow.
- And, boy, I... I jumped out of my skin.
I was so excited. What?
Me being on the same label as Elvis Presley?
RCA?
And still, when I think of RCA
and I mention it,
I get chills up and down my spine.
[**]
He had no sophistication except in his music.
So he was kind of rough around the edges.
And I'm just the opposite. I'm a square, you know.
I went to school and studied engineering
so we made it a very nice partnership, you could say.
I was prepared not to be successful at the beginning
because I had this wild animal
and I had to figure out what the direction to take him in
to make him acceptable to a wider audience.
But I always had in mind
that night at Gerde's when the audience went wild over him
because he was so charismatic in his music and so good as a musician.
Then I spent time with him, and we talked about the kind of things
he wanted to do, and of course,
this is the first album we did.
[crowd cheering]
[**]
The promotion department didn't understand Jose at all.
They didn't put any muscle into it, they didn't get people to play it.
All I knew is that I wanted to do another album right away.
And at that point we did the second album.
It was a little more focused on "rock," I guess you could call it.
In fact, the name of the album is A Bag Full of Soul.
This is the album.
[**]
He felt like a son to me all those years
and still a smartass kid
with a ghastly sense of humor.
A brutally ghastly sense of humor
that I love so much.
You can see what's going on in my face.
I'm reliving all of it, and it was wonderful.
[**]
Jose: I was young,
slim and handsome.
At least that's how I thought of myself.
I knew that since I couldn't see myself, I wouldn't be wrong.
I was managed by my first wife at the time.
I have to say she didn't do such a bad job in the beginning.
She did well, she meant well.
I met her playing at one of the cafes in Greenwich Village.
Her sister conned her into going there to see me.
Her sister goes, "He's a blind guy,
but what a guitarist he is."
And so she came in to see me.
She introduced herself.
We got along.
[**]
And it's sad. Nobody liked Hilda.
I don't understand why she had that kind of vibe with people.
At that time, I was with the agency ITA
and through Hilda
they got a little tour
going of Argentina
and RCA also sent me down
to do the festival in Mar del Plata.
I told the executives,
"Let me record
some boleros that I've known all my life."
We recorded it,
which was called Una voz, una sombra y una guitarra.
I got back to the apartment and then I hear the news.
"Jose, you got to come back here.
You're hotter than a pistol!"
[**]
I made the girls cry. They made me cry.
And it was crazy. It was like the screaming girls
they didn't care whether they could hear me or not.
They just were happy that they saw me.
I'll never get over it, I guess.
I expect the same thing at home.
No.
That concert and that album
were really the springboard
to my career.
- People don't realize he was the first ever Latin crossover artist.
He was raised in Manhattan,
in Spanish Harlem, and went back to Latin America
and made a huge hit in Argentina
with his bolero album.
So he was actually the first ever Latin crossover artist
that paved the way for everybody from Gloria
to Santana.
[**]
[crowd cheering]
- I think I should tell you the first time I met Jose,
Jose was 23.
The producers did not want to really hear his acoustic guitar.
A meeting was set up and we were having a little bit of a conversation
and all of a sudden I thought I saw something out of the corner of my eye fall
and I looked down and started to reach down.
And I saw an eye looking at me.
And I drew back.
And Jose said, "Did you see my eye?"
And I said,
"Yes, I think it's down here."
And kind of guided his hand to pick it up
because I'd never picked up an eye before off the floor.
And that was the beginning of our relationship,
that he planned that.
And he was putting me right on the spot.
And that's his sense of humor.
And it's never left him
in all the time that I've known him.
- Rick came to see me
at the Golden Bear, where I was playing in Huntington Beach.
And Rick put an album together
from a lot of the stage material
that I was playing.
That's what really got that album together.
And Jose and I discussed it and picked "Light My Fire"
as one of the songs.
I said, "Rick, I don't want to record 'Light My Fire.'
It was a hit last year, you know?"
And Rick said, "Well,
I think you should record it. Your performance is different."
And so when the album was completely finished,
I would take the album, put headphones on
and listen to it, and listen to it,
and listen to it...
[**]
- But...
when the execs from RCA heard that album,
the president, vice president and on down the line
and also Jose's managers,
they hated the album.
They hated everything they heard,
and they were even threatening to erase the album.
It was that bad.
And they said, "we wanted you to do a rock album with Jose Feliciano."
And my answer to them was, "I did what I felt was honest with this artist."
And it came out, through the grace of God,
it slipped out somehow
with all the RCA bureaucracy,
and suddenly radio stations started picking up the album
and the single, and it became a monster hit.
And Jose was finally recognized for the true great artist he is.
[crowd cheering]
Jose: When I was nominated for the Grammysear of 68,
I didn't know if I would win.
But when I was sitting there
and they were opening the envelope and they said,
"And now, the winner of the Grammy for Best New Artist
is... Jose Feliciano!
I almost shit in my pants.
[**]
¡Anda!
- I was 14 years old when I first heard "Light My Fire"
painting the fence in the front yard for my folks.
I had the radio on, you know, middle of summer
and listening, rocking to the radio
and "Light My Fire," I thought it was intriguing. I thought Jose was Black though,
I had no idea who he was or what he was.
It wasn't until he did "The Star-Spangled Banner"
did I see his image,
learned his name, put the two together and went,
"Oh!
He's very cute.
He's very cute."
- The first time I heard of Jose,
I believe it was "Light My Fire"
because I was a huge music fan.
He incorporated all this groove, this Latin groove into it.
Here was a guy with a name similar to mine,
a Hispanic name,
and huge.
I remember I still had
the first headphones that ever came out that were stereo
that I would listen to radio on,
and I was so excited for the sound.
- When he took that song, "Light My Fire,"
as big as it was by The Doors,
he was able to introduce it to 500 million people
that didn't know The Doors.
Jose: And to think that a kid from the hills of Puerto Rico
would be nominated on this American stage.
The only thing that took a little bit out of the joy
was that I couldn't share it with my mom
or my brothers.
I shared it with them on TV,
but none of them could be there to really enjoy it
and relish it with me.
- He loves being home and in the family dimension,
PUERTO RICAN LEAGUE BROOKLYN
the food, the music, the laughter, the people.
Jose has said a thousand times,
friends at school treated him differently.
He's still the same guy. "I'm still the same Jose."
And oh, well, now look at you.
People look at you differently.
Commentator: Ladies and gentlemen, please rise and join
in the singing of our national anthem,
which will be played by Merle Albee's band
and will be sung by Jose Feliciano.
Jose: In my mind, I thought, "Jose,
how are you going to sing the national anthem?"
I decided to put a little soul
into the anthem.
[Jose sings "The Star-Spangled Banner"]
- There's this one guy in particular,
and he's kind of like looking and straightening his tie.
He could not contain himself.
And then they cut away
and we watch the flag for the next moments.
And I think that was the first inclination
that there was like something amiss.
- I was in school already at the time
and we would sing the national anthem the way...
[singing] Oh, say, can you...
Some people were very offended.
Half of the stadium were throwing cans at him.
There was a lot of hatred at the time.
It was horrible the things that he had to hear
when all he was doing was being creative.
[**]
- Radio play disappeared.
Veterans, they say, were throwing their shoes
at the TV set and he's ostracized.
They want to deport him.
- Hello! Puerto Ricans are Americans,
but a lot of people don't even realize that.
Whenever you try something new
and try to be yourself, you'll always get criticized.
If you're an immigrant, if you come from somewhere else,
that's going to add
to whatever controversy, whenever you do anything.
[**]
- He loved this country.
It was never lack of respect.
It was something that I don't think anyone loves this country more than him.
[**]
- Right then and there
is when people went,
"Oh, improvising on top of something like this it's pretty cool.
It changed the course of pop culture forever.
[**]
- This man was in the 101st Airborne.
So when you write your nasty letters and...
- Nasty letters?
- When you mention the national anthem
and talk about playing it in an unorthodox way,
you immediately get a guaranteed percentage of hate mail...
- What did you say? I don't think it's unorthodox.
-It isn't unorthodox? - No, no, no.
I thought it was beautiful.
Well, there you go. [crowd cheers]
- So when I play it, we don't play lyrics.
We play... We play sex. Watch this.
[rhythmically snaps his fingers]
Like Marvin Gaye.
[rhythmically snaps his fingers and hums]
That's why I don't get in trouble.
This is sex and it's spiritual.
And how can you get in trouble with sexuality or spirituality?
It's always about all-inclusiveness.
I don't get in trouble because I don't sing the words.
I play the melody, and the melody transcends
what's written on paper about the national anthem.
[**]
- It wasn't until later in the evening when I saw it on the news
and it was like... just different.
I mean, it was stunningly different
for that time, for that moment.
And I think they almost likened
Jose's rendition of the anthem
as the burning of the flag.
- It was a hard pill to swallow. Truthfully.
I'd put the radio on and all I would hear is
everybody on these programs, they had criticized me.
I never thought I would cause that much of a ruckus.
I wasn't out
to defame the country that has given me
the opportunity to be successful.
- He lived in it and it was horrible
and it made it so that he had
to find work outside of the US somewhat.
[airplane engines roaring]
Jose: When you have a lot of pounds, people come around all the time, but when you're broke,
there's nobody to even pay your bills.
This is entitled "Down and Out."
In 1969,
I played the London Palladium.
Rick and I had a hit
live album.
And there was so much material, there was enough
for a double album and RCA was very much against that.
But it's so funny
because the minute that album was recorded,
the next day, RCA called me
and said, "Get those tapes back here
because it's already gone gold."
On a double album, which was unheard of at that time.
[**]
- Ladies and gentlemen, Jose Feliciano.
[crowd cheers]
[**]
And after 17 shows, if I learn a new chord
on every show, I'll know a total of 21 chords.
Would you teach me...?
And Johnny, It would be my pleasure, man, to teach you a few chords.
How about something like this, son?
[tricky guitar chord]
Yeah, I could learn that.
Jose Feliciano!
[crown cheering]
Jose: I wrot
from my family in Puerto Rico,
but I also wrote it
with the happiness that Puerto Rico can generate.
Unbeknownst to me, I was creating a monster.
But the one thing I did do
is that I made it
so that no station
could turn me off on Christmas.
I want to thank all of you for making
"Feliz Navidad"
the most famous song
all over the world.
Yeah, one more time!
[**]
I love you. Thank you.
And I see it now
and I laugh, you know,
because I'm thinking to myself, "Listen, you sons of bitches,
you got to play me now."
And I was proud and I am proud.
And it's like
having a pie
that every American artist or every European artist
wants to have a bite from it.
[**] [cheers]
- That was beautiful.
Here he is.
Here is the great Jose Feliciano.
The winner of Sanremo. How are you doing?
- I'm so happy with Sanremo success.
- You are? - Sure.
- What are you going to play for us?
- They chose this song to be number two, but I say it's number one.
- Okay, then.
- There is a song that has been successful
throughout the world and it's "Che sarà."
- In 1969, I performed in Buenos Aires carnival...
[**]
And there, I had the great opportunity
of meeting Jose Feliciano,
who two or three months later
would become a big world star.
At that moment,
my producer, who had helped me
write the song, told me:
"Imagine if we could get Feliciano to record this song?"
So we called him. He was very kind and said:
"Come to the US and we'll talk about it."
[crowd cheering]
[**]
Jose: It was a thrill for me
because this was the first time that a Puerto Rican had come
to that particular festival.
And I translated it into Spanish
and it became a hit in South America.
[crowd singing]
- "Qué será" was quite a phenomenon.
It charted in three different languages,
in three different continents.
It was amazing and it became a huge worldwide hit.
[**]
- I saw him in concert
and I met Hilda.
She said, "Oh, yes, you're the president of the fan club."
We were invited back to the dressing room.
Afterwards, my mom and my girlfriend, Mary and I,
and we spent a little time together.
And then my mommy said,
"Well, I guess it's time for me to take my girls home."
And I remember Jose said,
"Both of them?"
He invited me to be his girlfriend that week.
There was never a feeling of "am I doing something wrong here?" Because it never...
It never felt wrong.
It was a purity of heart
and an innocence that started with my...
...clueless! And Jose's, I think, need
to break away from some of that big mess that was happening.
You know, the explosion
of his music and the controversy with "The Star-Spangled Banner."
[**]
- Pop music, soul music, whatever you call it, at the time
was very segregated and the TV themes and film themes at the time
were kind of reserved for the composers.
It was really rare for a pop artist to do a TV theme.
And so Quincy Jones asks Jose
to do the theme song to the film McKenna's Gold,
and they end up having a hit with that song overseas.
And I think Quincy was nominated for a Grammy for the album.
Then he goes on to do Chico And The ManTV theme.
Then he goes on to do appearances,
TV show appearances.
Jose makes it big as a pop artist
and then ends up doing TV themes for the remainder of the seventies.
[**]
- I loved that show and I can still sing the theme.
[singing]
I liked it!
[**]
- That series, right there. I was very into the series.
Everybody was. I mean, it was a hit.
Freddie Prince was that guy that we all wanted to be.
He had the American friend that owned the garage
and mentored him and helped him.
There was so many Latinos trying to make it in this country,
trying to achieve their American dream.
[**]
[crowd cheering]
[**]
- I got the call to write the theme for Chico and the Man
in 73, and I had to make it so that Chico
had patience with the man.
I wrote the lyrics all by myself.
And I say that proudly.
Janna, my wife, Hilda,
forced me to give her
credit for the lyric, and she wrote nothing of that lyric.
- He was just...
a very, very unhappy guy.
Jose was tormented at that time
with what was going on at home.
His relationship was disintegrating. It was sad.
I felt really sad for him.
She changed her name during that time period.
Everything was happening so fast.
It's not even Hilda anymore. Now it's Janna.
- A lot of people were confused by that, but the truth is, Janna Feliciano
has the same initials as Jose Feliciano.
And what that allowed her to do
was to sign contracts
and booking engagements, all those things, in Jose's name
without Jose ever having to see them.
Jose's had that sort of bad luck
with not only his first wife also being his manager,
but many managers to follow.
The one thing that I would've wished for Jose's career
was that it could've had better management
because that would have changed things throughout his career.
Jose: In some ways, it was sad.
You just can't leave everything all of a sudden
and not feel bad.
I divorced her and I went to live with Susan.
Even though I felt sad
about the Janna situation,
I think it was the right move for me.
Susan treated me differently,
and that's all I can say about that.
[**]
- And so we married on our 11th anniversary of having met.
August 2nd, 1971. We met.
It was a Monday, and we married on a Monday,
August 2nd, 1982.
Date 8/2/82.
And we married in our home.
It was lovely. It was very, very, very nice.
Jose: In 1982,
I hadn't done a Latin album
in 13 years.
I recorded an album entitled Escenas de Amor,
and that album became a hit.
It had songs
like "Para decir adiós," "Volveré alguna vez,"
and it became a big seller.
- He goes on to win Latin Grammys, so in 82,
he comes out with this album and there's a song he wins with called "Me enamoré."
[**]
Thank you. How are you feeling?
- I saw your show on the Motown 25th anniversary thing.
That was quite a gathering!
- Yes, it was. I was very fortunate to get on that show
because there's so many people that they had at that gathering,
so many great artists.
- I read once you always wanted to be on Motown.
Now why would that be? That's primarily a Black label.
- Well, because I felt that...
I don't know. I felt that I could do
Black music, and I felt that
since I had that feeling
and that way
of expressing at least my music, I felt that that was the label for me.
I couldn't be on a label where I had to sing,
[sings] "I know you love me."
[laughs] - You can do anything!
- When we finally got together
in preparing for the Motown album,
it was like Christmas all over again.
Let's Find Each Other Tonight ended up on the Billboard Country charts.
It was on a Black label,
by a Puerto Rican singer
and a white producer.
A very interesting combination, to say the least.
We finished Romance In The Night.
As a matter of fact, I just happen to have a copy.
We were very proud of this album.
And as you can see,
it's that iconic Motown label.
[**]
Jose: It goes like this.
[**]
- You've been to the celebrity room before with other clients?
- I don't think so. It's nice.
- Yeah, well. It depends on the artist.
You know, Jose Feliciano. You got no complaints.
- The Motown 25 Celebration
when Michael Jackson premiered
what you would call, his moonwalk dance.
And if you see the footage today,
the riser behind him with the big M,
Jose is sitting on the other side of that.
And it rotated
as Michael finished his thing.
Jose then appeared
and he did "Lonely Teardrops."
But it wasn't in the special.
He was cut out of the special.
And Jose was devastated.
[**]
- I'd never met Berry Gordy,
but the opportunity arose and we met.
We shook hands and Berry Gordy said to me,
"That album that you produced is better than the one that I produced,
and I could not let it happen."
And I think I was just stunned to the point of disbelief
that somebody would want to kill it
because of ego.
But it hasn't been the first time it's happened in the music industry.
I've seen it many times.
- And it saddened me
that if Berry had really pushed the album,
I could have done as well as Stevie Wonder on Motown.
And this is not taking anything away from Stevie's genius.
Stevie is Stevie, and I'm Jose.
But if I would have gotten the same promotion
that Stevie Wonder got on Motown,
I think that album would have made it very well.
[**]
- Then he gets nominated again in 85, 86, 89 and 90.
He gets nominated four times and wins three of those.
He wins for "Lelolai," for "Cielito lindo,"
and he wins for "¿Por qué te tengo que olvidar?".
So people kind of forget that he had this huge career in the eighties.
[**]
- I remember a number of conversations that we had,
and one was about his children that were not born yet.
Jose's concern was, "what if my children are born blind?"
"I can just speak for myself", I said, "but the greatest gift
that you could ever receive would be to have children."
- I remember when we were preparing
for the arrival of our first child
and he was there most of the appointments and the sonogram.
The first one... [imitates sonogram]
He said, "Sounds like a girl to me."
And he was right.
- When I was little, he used to read to me.
We had a bunch of children's books in Braille,
and I remember he'd read The Little Engine That Could
over and over and over and over and over.
And he never was like, "No, I'm done."
He'd always be like, "Okay." And I'd be like, "Again!"
- When they were little, they would dance
and Melissa would help him find his chair by tapping on the seat.
Mikey and Johnny would hide from him, but Daddy would always catch them.
- I never decided to play the guitar and be like,
"Oh, I want to be just like Dad" because there's no way in hell that's going to happen.
[**]
- Okay, Johnny. Go ahead, Johnny. Play it.
[**]
What a show off!
- He's ridiculous.
I'll look up videos from when he was younger and like...
Some of it is like pretty heavy. It's still like when I watch it
I'll get goose bumps and stuff. I'm like, "That's my dad."
[**]
- When I first met Jose,
Melissa was three.
It's cool to watch the kids grow up.
The only thing he didn't like about being blind
because he was born blind, he doesn't know what side it is,
but the only thing he didn't really like about it
was that he always had to depend on people.
I would set up his room
for him so he could...
...maneuver.
I would set him up. I would explain to him the parameters of the room,
put the towel down on the floor so he wouldn't slip,
get him all set.
- "There is no email in this form", it says.
- And Jose was fine. On his own.
Independent. He would call me like the next day.
"Jimmy, I'm all set. Let's go."
And he would always feel better
because I was empowering him to be independent.
Who wouldn't want to be? And why shouldn't he be?
This is a guy who travels the world blowing people away with his music.
He should feel good about himself.
He's is a good dude.
[**]
- Oh! They didn't leave the controls here.
I guess I'll have to go to the other side. No problem.
I wasn't blind yesterday Okay.
[grunts]
[voices on the TV]
[**]
- I think,
for my brother and sister and I,
it's always been something normal having a blind dad.
He's always been able to do everything a normal dad has.
[**]
We loved watching movies,
The Three Stoogesall the time,
baseball games, playing music together
that a lot of my friends, they didn't get to do that with their family
and have that kind of connection.
[**]
- Play a solo there, Mike!
[**]
He's got the funk!
Got the funk!
- I remember playing basketball, playing catch.
He would pitch to me and my brother would be behind and get the ball
running back to him, or we would pitch to him
and tell him to swing, so we all had that very normal
kind of playing outside, father-son, childhood kind of thing.
So it's never been
a real notice.
[**]
- There are times when my wife will probably say,
"Oh, don't put that on." But I must call it like it is.
I hate being blind itself
because it limits me physically to what I can do.
I was angry at one time. I was.
And maybe, to a point,
I am today still.
But I just can't go around all my life being angry.
[**]
- My dad is one of the hardest working men that I know.
He's never missed his work.
He always makes time for his fans
and always says hello and always takes a photo.
It'll be 30 seconds for us, but a lifetime memory for somebody else.
- You're ready, right?
- I'm ready.
I have my pants on.
[laughs]
They tell me you play a whole bunch of instruments.
- Yes, I'm 15 years old
and I play the cuatro, guitar, accordion, piano.
- I used to be like that when I was a child.
I used to play the guitar at that time.
- Very different, but very the same from any other kind of family.
Just... my dad has a whole other life
that he kind of leaves at the door,
but every time that we leave our house,
it'll come back.
[**]
I never felt like we were backing
a superstar, which we were.
We felt like we were...
all locked in together.
And that was on the road and off the road.
- Jose's drive to outdo everybody and anybody was huge.
It might have been where he came from and what he had to do
to be noticed.
I remember night after night he would say,
"We're going to go out there and kick some ass."
He would say that all the time! I was like, "Wow! Okay."
He was always ready to like, "Yeah, oh, yeah? Watch this."
- It was always camaraderie. It was always that brotherhood.
There's no facade of stardom.
He's just a regular cat
who does what he does and does it well.
- Yeah, you're going to Korea, you're going to Greece,
you're going to India. We're in India!
People like, "Jose!" You know, like we're in India!
I think he just wants everybody to have a good time.
I think that means a lot to him. We just wanted
to play some tunes, eat some food and have a drink,
and that's universal.
And he was very good at presenting that to people.
Very, very. He's just one of the best.
He just makes you feel like you've gone on a journey somewhere, and it was.
It was a journey!
- It's all these songs and all these places.
It's funny because Jose knows.
He told me many times that his guitar
is his passport to the world.
[**]
- Into the 90s, he's nominated for three more Grammys
and he wins another Grammy in 2008.
And then you've got his Lifetime Achievement Award.
Every decade of Jose's life,
you can carve out either
a Grammy nomination or a Grammy win
over the course of 50, 55 years.
ONE NIGHT ONLY JOSE FELICIANO
- Bellas Artes is waiting for you.
What can we expect on that night?
- You can expect me, singing.
This year I'm turning 73.
- You look good! - Yes.
- You have an audience that knows all your songs.
- They will help me, then.
[**]
PUERTO RICO MAY 12, 2018
[**]
[crowd cheering]
[**]
- We wanted to search for a way in which the Smithsonian
could acknowledge and recognize his contributions to American history.
When he first publicly performed
his beautiful version of "The Star-Spangled Banner,"
it was an incredibly emotional experience
for Americans throughout the country.
[**]
[cheering]
- When I was asked to donate
something to this museum,
it wasn't easy to say
goodbye to my girlfriend.
She'd been with me for 51 years.
[**]
- Now, next year will be our 60th Anniversary for Motown.
Would you mind saying "Happy Anniversary"?
- Sure, sure.
Hi, I'm Jose Feliciano.
Sometimes I call myself the pale version of Stevie Wonder.
[laughs] But I am Jose Feliciano,
and I would like to help Motown
celebrate its 60th Anniversary.
[**]
- The national anthem was the worst thing,
that's turned into one of the greatest,
greatest things. I mean, it's bizarre.
Life is crazy!
[**]
- We were in Dallas in 2007.
I get to the hotel and I'm taking the guitars out,
and these people walk by the back,
They said, "What are you doing?" I have a concert with Jose Feliciano.
"Oh, yeah? Jose Feliciano, huh?
Would you tell him I was at Tiger Stadium in 1968
and he should come by such bar at the hotel
and buy me a drink when he does because he disgraced the anthem?"
He was really pissed off...
...40 years later!
The flip side of that is dear friend Ernie Harwell.
Ernie had died and we were playing
his memorial at the ballpark
and there was a luncheon with the '68 Tigers,
and they had a slightly different
opinion of Jose's anthem.
They loved it.
And they were losing three games to one.
They came back and won the last three games.
Jose, was their good luck charm. They love him for it. And that's nice.
Commentator: Here's William...
Detroit, the new World Champions!
And look at Williams picking up Lolich!
It's a happy bunch of Tigers!
They have beaten the Cardinals 4 to 1,
and they have replaced them as the Champions of Baseball!
And they made some comeback. They were trailing three games to one.
- And now we ask all of you to remain standing
as we welcome to the field an iconic figure
from the 1968 World Series.
Booked by Hall of Fame announcer Ernie Harwell
to perform the national anthem prior to game five,
his performance stands out as one of the most memorable anthems
in the history of sports.
He's now recognized as helping pave the way for future performers
to express their patriotism
with their own artistic flair.
Ladies and gentlemen, here to perform our national anthem.
Please, welcome Jose Feliciano!
[crowd cheers]
[**]
[crowd cheers]
- I love you, Detroit!
[cheering]
God bless America!
- For me, Jose will always be
a person who belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
He has the gift of being multidimensional,
like Bob Marley or John Lennon,
totally with clarity like water. You know, there's tequila,
whiskey, bourbon and cerveza,you know.
And then there's water, you know. Jose is water.
I never looked at Jose like Latino,
or Puerto Rican...
To me, as an artist he's an artist that transcends
all of those things.
- One of the biggest enigmas
is that Jose Feliciano has not
gotten nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But if there's somebody
that's extremely deserving to be
nominated into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is Mr. Jose Feliciano
because he's paid his dues, he's earned it.
- But I'd like to do for you my favorite Beatles' song
because it reminds me of all the things
that I have been through.
And I want to dedicate the song to all of you
because you all have been important in my life.
And so this is "In My Life,"
and I dedicate it to you.
[**]