Juan Gabriel and Héctor Lavoe enter the United States Library of Congress

The voices of Latin music icons John Gabriel and Hector Lavoe have entered the sound registry of the United States Library of Congress, the largest in the world, which each year adds 25 audios to its collection worthy of being saved for posterity.

The hits ‘Amor Eterno’, which established the ‘Divo de Juárez’ as a singer and composer, and ‘El Cantante’, which relaunched the Puerto Rican salsero’s career, were incorporated into the National Recording Registry, the institution announced this Tuesday in a statement. .

The albums ‘Parallel Lines’ and ‘Arrival’, by the iconic bands Blondie and ABBA, respectively, are also part of the collection, along with the cheerful song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’, by Bobby McFerrin, which has raised the spirit of several generations in the world.

The selected audios have been cataloged as “defining sounds of the history and culture” of the nation, explained the Library, based in Washington.

Among those selected is also ‘This Is a Recording’, an album of monologues released in 1971 by American actress and comedian Lily Tomlin, which earned her a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Recording and made her the first woman to achieve this in lonely in that category.

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden said these “audio treasures worthy of preservation” They include a wide range of music from the last 100 years, including samples of jazz and bluegrass, and iconic recordings of pop, dance, country, rock, rap, and Latin and classical music.

He explained that a record number of nominations had been received for 2024 and welcomed public input on what should be preserved. In total, the registry has 650 recordings selected for their historical importancecultural and aesthetic, which represent a small part of the nearly four million sound archives that the Library has.

The 25 new additions span the period from 1919 to 1998 and include recordings by the United States 369th Infantry Regiment Band, led by James Reese Europe and credited with introducing jazz to Europe.

Also added were albums that marked a generation such as ‘Ready to Die’, by rapper The Notorious BIG; ‘Dookie,’ by the Californian band Green Day, and the country song ‘Wide Open Spaces’, by The Chicks.

Regarding the incorporation of ‘Amor Eterno’, Iván Aguilera, son of Juan Gabriel, said that his father “always wanted” future generations to listen to his music.

“There was something that he always said: as long as the public, the people, continue singing my music, Juan Gabriel will never die, and it’s nice to see that happening here.”valued the son of Alberto Aguilera Valadez (1950-2016), real name of the ‘Divo de Juárez’.

‘Amor Eterno’ was composed by Juan Gabriel and became a hit in the voice of Rocío Dúrcal in 1984. But the Mexican later turned it into one of the most recognized songs in Mexican vernacular music and a hymn to mothers, after his concert at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico in 1990.

A similar success had ‘El Cantante’, composed by another of the greats of salsa, the Panamanian Rubén Blades and produced by Willie Colón, which remained for posterity in the voice of Lavoe (1946-1993).

The song from the ‘singer’s singer’, as Lavoe is known, debuted on Fania Records’ 1978 album ‘Comedia’, and became the Puerto Rican’s signature song and provided the title of the 2006 biographical film about his life, starring Marc Anthony.

The song narrates the livelihood, struggles and adversities that the singers experience, in addition to describing how they must interact positively with the public, who, in the end, is their only support.

‘El Cantante’ is an excellent example of the many songs that became emblematic at the height of the salsa era in New York City in the 1970s, the Library noted.

With information from EFE