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THE weekend of September 23 and 24 will not be easily forgotten by Gloria and Emilio Estefan. On the Saturday evening the singer and her husband downed margaritas by the pool of their Miami Beach hotel headquarters to celebrate the conclusion of the packed three-day launch campaign for the new Estefan album, Abriendo Puertas.
For this, they had taken over a good part of the highly chic Delano Hotel on South Beach. The launch began with a press conference jammed with Latin American Selina Scotts and attended by top brass from Sony Records - for whom Gloria Estefan is one of the most important assets, having sold 25 million albums. In the evening, there was a glamorous party for 1,300 mainly media and record industry guests. La Estefan stayed out of sight in a cordoned-off VIP lounge, apparently to avoid being swamped by Latino paparazzi, and left early to get ready for two more days of back-to-back interviews in a pool-side Delano bungalow.
So by the Sunday afternoon the Estefans thought they were finally able to relax, half a mile offshore on their 33ft powerboat, when the sting in the tail of the weekend revealed itself. Around 4pm the boat was hit by a Yamaha jet-ski whose vacationing law student pilot was indulging in the dicey pastime of `jumping' the wakes of other craft. Sucked under and chopped by its propellers, the student died, despite being supported by Emilio Estefan in the water until help arrived. `Having been in a life-threatening accident ourselves,' said Estefan to reporters outside Miami Beach Coastguard Station, referring to the 1990 tour bus crash in which his wife broke her back, `we are deeply saddened by the young man's death.' The tragic headlines preceded by 48 hours the release-day articles - `Estefan's most satisfying release yet' - and the appearance of the title track on all the radio Top 10 playlists.
Even in advance of its probable huge success, Abriendo Puertas is significant as the follow-up to Mi Tierra, Estefan's 1993 return to her Cuban musical roots, after a decade's success singing mainly English-language pop. A vast seller across the Hispanic world - one million...