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José Montserrate Feliciano García (born September 10, 1945) is a Puerto Rican singer and guitarist. He was left permanently blind at birth due to congenital glaucoma. Feliciano overcame the effects of this impairment to score many international hits.
Feliciano was born in Lares, Puerto Rico, one of eleven children. He was first exposed to music at age three. At five, his family moved to Spanish Harlem, New York City and, at age nine, he played on the Teatro Puerto Rico. He played various instruments (such as the accordion) by then, but he wanted to learn to play the guitar. To do this, he locked himself in his room for up to 14 hours a day to listen to 1950s rock albums, classical guitarists like Andrés Segovia, and jazz players like Wes Montgomery, and having had assistance from Harold Morris.
At 17, because his family was going through a precarious economic situation, he quit school to play in clubs, having his first professional, contracted performance in Detroit.
In 1966, he went to Mar Del Plata, Argentina, to perform at the Festival de Mar Del Plata. There, he impressed RCA Victor officials who told him to stay there to record an album in Spanish. They weren't sure what they wanted to record, but Feliciano suggested they record bolero music. The result was two smash hits with the singles Poquita Fe (Little Faith, a.k.a. Sin Fe, or Without Faith), a song written by fellow Puerto Rican Bobby Capó, and Usted (the formal way to say "you" in Spanish).
A year later Feliciano was to perform in Great Britain, but authorities would not allow his guide dog into the country. The stringent quarantine measures of those days were intended to prevent the spread of rabies. Feliciano expressed his anger in the song No Dogs Allowed, which made the charts in 1969.
After two more successful albums, Feliciano, now a household name all over Latin America, moved to Los Angeles, to pursue his dream of becoming a household name in the United States too. Feliciano then composed Feliz Navidad which has become a Christmas classic in the United States as well as in Latin America, his own versions of The Doors' song Light My Fire (reaching #3 on the U.S. pop charts in late summer, 1968), and Tommy Tucker's Hi-Heel Sneakers. He immediately became a sensation all across North America, selling millions of albums on the strength of those three songs and winning two Grammy Awards for Best New Artist of the Year and for Best Pop Song of the Year in 1969.
In 1968, at the height of protests against the Vietnam War, Feliciano was given the opportunity to perform The Star-Spangled Banner at Tiger Stadium during the World Series. His highly personalized, slow, Latin jazz performance proved highly controversial. He accompanied himself on an acoustic guitar. Though some called his rendition unpatriotic and a disgrace, others understood the emotions and sincerity of his performance, and he emerged as a counterculture hero. The rendition was released as a single which charted for 5 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #50. Feliciano's "Star-Spangled Banner" took place 10 months before the now famous Jimi Hendrix rendition at Woodstock.
In 1971, he traveled to Italy to participate in the Sanremo Music Festival, singing the song Che Sarà in Italian, earning second place in that contest as well as the ovation by the Italian public. He later recorded the song, which became a well-known act in Italy, a great hit in half of Europe, including the Iron Curtain countries, as well as in Asia. Feliciano later recorded it in Spanish as Que Serà, becoming a hit in all of Central and South America, and in English as Shake a Hand, a big hit in Scandinavian countries.
He wrote and performed the theme song to the 1970s comedy series Chico and the Man, and played a guest role on that series as Chico's (Freddie Prinze) cousin, singer Pepe Fernando. In the 1970s, he acted and composed for TV series and movies including McMillan & Wife, Kung Fu episodes, the soundtrack of the movie Aaron Loves Angela in 1976, and Mackenna's Gold with Quincy Jones. He is featured on Bill Withers' 1974 album, 'Justments. On Can We Pretend he plays guitar, and on Railroad Man he plays congas and again plays guitars in 1975 on John Lennon's album Rock 'n' Roll and on the Joni Mitchell album Court and Spark.
Feliciano holds the distinction of being one of the few singers to have enjoyed success both in Spanish music and in English rock and roll. In the 1970s he was an appreciated musician and considered one of the most incredible guitarists of our time: He won five consecutive awards for best pop guitarist from Guitar Player magazine and was voted in jazz, classic and rock fields.
He received a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987, and continued a very popular singer during the 1980s. He had his hands cast on the famous Madame Tussaud's Museum's 'Wall of Fame,' and has a star in the Walk of Fame of his native Puerto Rico. He also had a great hit in 1987 in Austria for the song The Sound of Vienna, No. 1 for four weeks and recorded with the famous Vienna Symphony Orchestra, which also performed live with him at Danube Park in Vienna with more than 50,000 people and broadcast on national TV. During the 1980s, record companies gave him space only for the Latin market and he recorded an impressive number of albums for that market, including the Motown allbums Escenas de Amor and Me Enamoré and others from RCA, EMI and Capitol which added four more Grammys for best Latin performer.
In 1995, Feliciano was honored by the City of New York, which re-named Public School 155 the Jose Feliciano Performing Arts School. In 1996, he played himself in the film Fargo, singing in a hotel ballroom, though in the distance and not very recognizable.
In 2003 Guitarra Mía, a special tribute to Feliciano, was produced by the Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and aired in Puerto Rico and in cities with large Latino populations in the United States. This television special (and its soundtrack) featured Feliciano and many Puerto Rican and international stars singing some of his most famous songs, along with his personal favorites from other artists. It was first aired on December, 2003, just two days after his mother died unexpectedly from a heart attack; in an eerie coincidence, the special's last scenes featured her giving her son a standing ovation, recorded for the occasion a month before.
Each year during the Christmas season, Feliciano's 1970 Christmas song Feliz Navidad returns to U.S. airwaves, one of the most-played and most-downloaded radio songs and downloaded songs of the season. Feliz Navidad is also recognized by ASCAP as one of the 25 all-time most-played Christmas songs in the world.
In 2006, Feliciano recorded his first instrumental album, Six String Lady, dedicated to his master, Andres Segovia. This album is available only for download from his personal website. He recorded it at the suggestion of Puerto Rican radio personality Gilbert Mamery.
On December 6, 2006, Feliciano's new Spanish album, Jose Feliciano y amigos was released by Universal Records, featuring Feliciano joined in duets with many other Latin American stars including Luis Fonsi, Lupillo Rivera, Luciano Pereyra, Rudy Perez, Cristian Castro, Marc Anthony, Ramon Ayala, Alicia Villarreal,Ricardo Montaner, and Raúl di Blasio. A special edition was later released and featured Ana Gabriel and Gloria Estefan.
In 2007, Feliciano released a new album called Soundtrack of My Life, the first English album composed and written by himself, many musical reviewers consider this the best Feliciano album in 30 years.
Besides his musical skills, Feliciano is known for his strong sense of humor. He constantly makes fun of people's reactions to his blindness, and has even played practical jokes on friends and family based on this. A famous incident has him asking a limousine driver who was taking him to a concert in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico to do the following while stopping at a traffic light: push back the drivers' reclining seat while holding the steering wheel, allow him to lean against the driver's door, open the drivers' window, and say hello to his mother Josefina --who was a passenger at another limousine next to his,-- giving her the impression that he was driving the limousine.
He has performed comedy sketches alongside Freddie Prinze, Sunshine Logroño, the staff of Despierta América and Verónica Castro, among others. He has also parodied fellow artists in his concerts, among them: Julio Iglesias, Raphael, the late Rocío Jurado and Isabel Pantoja. An occasional song at his Spanish concerts is a parody of Bobby Capó's song "El Bardo". While the Right Said Fred song I'm Too Sexy was popular in the early 1990s, Feliciano did a parody of it to close his English concerts.
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