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Juan Gabriel (born Alberto Aguilera Valadez), songwriter and performer, died on August 28th, aged 66
MANY of the songs, and there were at least 1,500 of them, were syrupy and sentimental. Some were more sobbed than sung. Juan Gabriel was not David Bowie. But in the Spanish-speaking world he was even bigger, and his death touched off similar mass mourning. Mexico's greatest modern pop singer touched the hearts of tens of millions, including millions living north of the Rio Grande. His meaning was deeper and more subversive than some of his songs might suggest.
Part of his appeal lay in his own history. Alberto Aguilera knew all about the solitude and loss of love of which Juan Gabriel, his stage persona, sang. The youngest of ten children, his parents were farm workers in the western state of Michoacan. When he was four, his father was confined in a mental hospital. His mother moved the family to Ciudad Juarez, on the border with the United States. Unable to cope, she placed Alberto in an orphanage. The separation traumatised him. As he grew rich, in his quiet way of pointing out the injustices in Mexican society, he bought her the house in Juarez she had once cleaned for a living; when she died, she became the "Amor Eterno"of one of his biggest hits. He gave money, too, to children's...