Emilio Estefan Biography

In order to make a living, he started running errands for neighbouring Cuban women out of a run down car. He then moved on to holding beauty competitions, for which he charged entrance fees and, in order to save money, he reused funeral-wreath ribbons as sashes for the competitors.

He followed that with a position in the mailroom at Bacardi Imports, a job that eventually allowed him to become director of their Latin marketing department.

One of Estefan’s several jobs, however, was playing the accordion at an Italian restaurant for tips, and so when he his boss at Bacardi asked him to play for a party, he hired a drummer and a conga player, and played for nine solid hours.

By the time he met his future wife Gloria in 1975, he had a nine-member band called the Miami Latin Boys. When he heard her voice, he asked her to perform as lead singer with his band and, within a year and a half, she had joined the group, which had been renamed The Miami Sound Machine.

Within months, they had become the best party band in Miami, and Gloria and Emilio married in 1978, by which time Emilio had quit his $100,000-a-year job at Bacardi and signed a recording contract with CBS Records.

The band were filling over 40,000 fans in soccer stadiums in Central and South America and, by 1984, they were one of the most successful acts in the world with two gold, and one platinum, albums.