America discovered Jose Feliciano in 1968 when his imaginative reworking of the Doors’ hit, “Light My Fire,” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The record sold more than a million copies.
Fans also remember Feliciano for 1970’s “Feliz Navidad,” which brought to mainstream American two traditional, seasonal greetings among the Spanish-speakers of Puerto Rico: “Feliz Navidad” (“Merry Christmas”) and “Prospero año y felicidad” (“Happy New Year and happiness”).
Those who know Feliciano for those two hits — as well as writing and singing the theme song for ’70s sitcom “Chico and the Man” — may be surprised to learn that he was an international hit-maker across South America before he recorded “Light My Fire.” His most recent project, a Feliciano-ized update of “En Mi Viejo San Juan” (“In My Old San Juan”), a classic Puerto Rican song that describes the experience of missing the island, was released on June 7.
Feliciano’s record label, Anthem Records, is donating 20% of the proceeds from sales to the Flamboyan Arts Fund, an organization which supports the arts and arts education in Puerto Rico.
“I did it because still — after the hurricane (in 2017) — Puerto Rico hasn’t truly recovered. There are towns still without electricity, without many things that you and I take for granted, and the arts really have suffered,” Feliciano said, speaking from his home in southern Connecticut.
”The song is about missing Puerto Rico,” he said, “but one thing I know is that I am an American. I’m a Puerto Rican American, and I love this country very much.”
Feliciano comes to Honolulu this weekend at the Blue Note Hawaii.
BLIND FROM birth, Feliciano was born in 1945 in Puerto Rico, and grew up in Spanish Harlem.
He taught himself how to play the accordion when he was 7, and when Feliciano was 9, his father gave him his first guitar. Feliciano devoted his life to the instrument, listening to everything from rock to jazz.
Feliciano quit school at 17 and starting working Greenwich Village coffee houses to help support his family. Playing for tips lead to paid gigs which led to his first record deal, a single that was a hit in the Philippines, and two critically-acclaimed albums.
A one-nighter in Argentina was so well-received that his record label suggested he do an album in Spanish.
Given the opportunity to do his own thing, Feliciano took some of his parents’ favorite songs and added elements of the American folk and blues music he had played in the coffee houses.
Almost overnight, Feliciano was a Latin America superstar.
“I never understood it — hundreds of women meeting me at the airport in all these countries — it embarrassed me a little bit,” he recalled modestly. “I mean, I never thought of myself as ‘the new Elvis Presley of South America’ but I had to learn to run into a limousine, and you don’t know how ridiculous a blind person looks running toward a limousine and trying to get in! It showed me what the Beatles must have felt like.
This was all well before he moved to Los Angeles and recorded “Light My Fire.”
It was a song that almost did not get recorded — and after it was recorded, might never have been heard. The record label released it as the B side of Feliciano’s single — the A side was Feliciano’s reworking of “California Dreamin’.”
“Light My Fire” was destined for oblivion until a radio disk jockey who liked what he heard decided to start playing it instead. It blew up nationally. Feliciano got his gold record and went on to win two Grammys.
Feliciano credits his producer with encouraging him on both renditions.
“Even though I liked the original version (of ‘Light My Fire’), I performed it differently,” he recalled. “My good friend and producer, Rick Jarrard, heard my performance and suggested that I record it.”
“Feliz Navidad” had a similarly convoluted path to success.
“I was working on a Christmas album and my producer at the time was still Rick Jarrard, and he said ‘Jose, why don’t you write a Christmas song?’ I didn’t think anyone would like it, but I came up with the first part of it, and then Rick said ‘We should write an English lyric so that when the record comes out they won’t turn us off because it’s all Spanish.’ That’s what happened. … As the years went by, ‘Feliz Navidad’ got bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Music writers and journalists credit Feliciano with being one of a short list of Spanish-speaking recording arts who had major success on the Hot 100 in the early years of the rock era — Richie Valens, Ray Baretto, Trini Lopez and Carlos Santana are four of the others.
Feliciano declines the title of “pioneer.”
“I think of myself as an artist doing what I do. I know one thing — I know there’s nobody like me. I know with my guitar, because I use it as an orchestra, when I go on stage, even if I go on by myself, I’m orchestrated and I like that.”
Feliciano celebrated 50 years in music with a lineup of commemorative concerts and other special events in 2018. He says that as long as he is healthy, age is nothing but a number.
“In 1968 I was 22 years old and full of life. Now I’m older but I’m still full of life,” he said. “If you’re full of life, live it until you’re not full of life, and then when you go you won’t mind going.”
“I ain’t going no place,” he added emphatically, “‘cause I got a lot of music yet.”
JOSE FELICIANO
>> Where: Blue Note Hawaii
>> When: 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sunday-Monday
>> Cost: $45-$65
>> Info: 777-4890, bluenotehawaii.com
