From “Conga” to “Raíces,” eight-time Grammy Award winner Gloria Estefan takes us through her Billboard chart history, sharing behind the scenes stories on her greatest hits and revealing personal backstories on her No. 1 songs throughout her astonishing 50 year career.
Gloria Estefan:
Hi I’m Gloria Estefan, and we’re going to talk about my No. 1s chart history on Billboard. ‘Primitive Love’ was the first record to launch our careers to a global level. It was a completely creative process, and we loved what we were doing. We were not only recording the album, but doing samples. I remember that I had a book this big and we put the microphone on the floor and we let it fall. We used that on the “loops” because it was the era where “loops” were being used a lot, but Joe Galdo who was one of the “jerks,” he did a lot of the tracks on ‘Primitive Love,’ he was a drummer.
We recorded the “loops,” but we were using sounds, sounds that no one had, which is why “Conga” still sounds so fresh, and he would sit and move every single thing in the loop from the snare or the “tum,” he would move it a little bit to make sure we had the anticipation or the passion that a conga has on top of a rhtym for dancing, so it was super nice to be able to make this album together.
When “Conga” came out, it really was a mix of incredible things. It has a sample of James Brown because I loved R&B and I wanted it in there.
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