A Sweet Voice Silenced Too Soon : Composer Remembers Slain Singer Selena for Her Charm, Charisma and Musical Versatility

The violent death of Tejano superstar Selena has touched the Latino community throughout the country. The 23-year-old Mexican American Grammy winner was shot last week, allegedly by Yolanda Saldivar, a fan and former personal assistant who reportedly had been fired by Selena the day before for misusing funds.

News of Selena’s death sent ripples of disbelief and sadness among her fans, who had come to see her as the epitome of a Latina rising from poverty and achieving success.

In Los Angeles, where Selena had been scheduled to sing the day after her death, the concert was replaced by a memorial Mass on Sunday that was attended by thousands of grieving fans.

Composer Jose Borrego, owner of Guiro’s Records on Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles, has been following Selena’s career since she first started singing as a child. A Cuban with 25 years in the music business, Borrego speculates on why the Texas-born woman, whose full name was Selena Quintanilla Perez, so captured the fancy of Spanish-speaking audiences everywhere. He was interviewed by Leila Cobo-Hanlon.

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Everybody I know has been deeply affected by her death. She was a young girl who had fought to get where she was, and her records were selling very well.

The truth is, in all my years in this business, I’ve never heard of a death that has so affected the public. Deaths of people like (Mexican singers) Javier Solis and Agustin Lara were deeply mourned, but they were natural deaths. Hers was a murder and she was so very young.

She was very charismatic, and I think that explains a lot of her appeal. She had tons of charm and was genuinely nice, always smiling. I’m convinced she had great things ahead of her.

What was very surprising and important in her career is that despite being born in the United States, she chose to sing in Spanish.

When she actually spoke in Spanish, you could tell she wasn’t really fluent. But she would laugh at her mistakes and people loved that.

I have been following her career since she was 9 or 10 years old. The first time I saw her live was during a rehearsal at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, and right there I could see that she had a lot of charisma and was born to be onstage.

I’m a composer, so I asked her if she would record one of my songs. Unfortunately, she died before we could do that.

News of her death has really hit me hard, and I’ve spent a lot of the past few days home, resting, because I’ve really been depressed.

I was in my car when my wife called me and gave me the news, and by the time I got to the store, all her records were sold out. Since then, we’ve sold out again and again and I haven’t been able to get the company to send me more records.

My employees and clients are all stunned. Every time someone heard the news, their reaction was to scream. They couldn’t believe it.

People in Los Angeles, especially, are very upset, because she was Mexican American. But the truth is she was hugely popular among all Latino groups. The Cubans in Miami adored her. And in Puerto Rico, where traditionally you have to be Puerto Rican to get your foot in that market, her music sold extremely well.

It was incredible how she was liked by so many different people of all ages. Part of it was she was very versatile. She sang ballads, pop, country music from Texas, rancheras. In the movie “Don Juan de Marco” (which opened this weekend, starring Marlon Brando and Johnny Depp), she sang with a mariachi band and she did pretty well.

She said in an interview that she liked Mexican music because it was all about feelings. She was unique in her versatility and that’s why so many different people purchased her music. Kids loved her because she was always dancing and smiling. I think they saw her a bit like (Mexican pop star) Gloria Trevi, who is also very popular among youngsters. And older men liked her, too, because she was very pretty.

I honestly wouldn’t call her the Madonna of Tejano music because she wasn’t about that. She was much more down-to-earth. But I can assure you she was going to go far, and she was going to start recording in English.

The saddest thing is, she was supposed to fly to Los Angeles on an earlier flight, and her father asked her to wait, because of bad weather or something like that. So I guess it was destiny calling, because if she’d traveled earlier, she would still be alive.

I think she will always remain a big influence and her music will always sell well.

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Guiro’s Records has been sold out of Selena’s albums since shortly after the singer’s death, but a request is in for additional shipments.