“Mexico Mi Amor,” we had fourteen original pieces. Only fellow musicians would understand what a labour of love this album had been and how many hundreds of studio and telephone hours I had been required to log.
• • •
Now that the album was due to be released by Fusion Music, with distribution by Universal, it was time to try to perform the pieces live … but how without a supporting band? Hiring Pavlo, who had formerly only been playing restaurants and bars on the Danforth, a focal point for Toronto’s Greek community, provided the perfect solution. Accompanying him were Gino Mirizio, Randy Rodrigues, and George Vasilakos — all good-natured, super-talented musicians who played drums, bass, and guitars, respectively. Pavlo and his band were able to back me up and add great variety to my program, so in preparation for live shows and the album release we began rehearsing in an old warehouse in Toronto. It has been gratifying over the years to witness Pavlo’s career take off and watch him develop an international following.
3
Divorce
My accommodating husband was supportive of my new project and, having enjoyed experiencing Canada before, he promised to come along on parts of the tour that my agent, Bernie Fiedler, was putting together. The concerts were split into two parts, so Jack and I were able to take a holiday with my parents in San Miguel de Allende, where I filmed music videos to “Bajo el Sol” and “Parranda,” the first using the empty bullring with a prancing white stallion and handsome Spanish rider circling around me in the burning midday sun.
I have long had a special relationship with San Miguel de Allende. For my parents, siblings, and me, the town had become a familiar second home ever since, thanks to my father’s sabbatical, my schoolteacher parents had packed up our trusty blue-and-white VW bus and driven us south to spend a year living there in 1967. We made annual pilgrimages to our beloved little town afterward and had frequently chosen it as a place for family reunions. Nestled in the mountains of central Mexico, this art colony changed our lives. In fact, I believe the music, art, and literature I discovered there played a significant role in developing my sense of romance. It was in San Miguel that I first started to learn Spanish and to fall in love with the soulful serenades and mariachi music that were part of daily life. It was there, under the star-sprinkled skies, that my sister, Vivien, and I kissed our Mexican boyfriends as teenagers. It was there that we rode horses in the mountains and danced to the local bands, often into the wee hours, safely in the company of our parents.
I adored being back in San Miguel, taking Jack to meet some of the town’s eccentric characters, having lunch with my friend, the renowned skater and artist Toller Cranston, chatting with former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s biographer, Joe Persico — a fan of my music and friend of my parents — and walking with Jack along the memory-filled cobblestoned streets of my adolescence, even though I sensed poor Jack was never really comfortable being in Mexico. The culture was so very different from the America he knew, but in his safari outfit and Tilley hat he did his best to enjoy himself and took long walks, striding up the hills and around the town. Because of his commanding presence Jack earned the nickname “El Comandante” among my Mexican amigos.
Still the incurable romantic, brimming with nostalgia for my past youth, I loved speaking Spanish, loved listening to the out-of-tune mariachi bands, and loved looking into the beautiful dark eyes of my young Mexican video director. I realized that I was a married woman, but as we said goodbye one moonlit starry night on the steps of the hacienda that Jack had rented, we shared a lingering forbidden kiss that remained in my mind. I was craving the romantic soul of Mexico, and those weeks in the mountain town of my adolescence had rekindled my love affair with the country, the romance of the language, and the music that floated in and out of cafés, churches, and town squares, and greeted us everywhere we went.
Back in Los Angeles, I followed Richard Fortin’s advice in late 2001 and decided to add to the album a new song I had written in both English and Spanish called “Latin Lady” or “Morenita.” Enrique Iglesias was burning up the airwaves with his infectious hits “Bailamos” and “Rhythm Divine,” and we wanted to try to catch the Latin wave that was suddenly sweeping America. A vocal piece might garner more airplay than instrumental ones, we reasoned, and our decision was edged on by the executives at Sony who were now expressing interest in the album.
The final production of these songs required my taking a couple of quick trips to Miami to add the voice of Innis, an up-and-coming Latin singer who was being touted as the next Ricky Martin. I willingly paid the hefty fee to his manager, hopeful that my new songs might excite radio. Little did I know that a few months later, after they had spent over a million dollars promoting him, Sony’s Latin Music division would suddenly drop Innis from their roster. Ay, ay, ay! The fickleness of the music business.
To this day I am proud of the two numbers I wrote in Spanish, and many people have told me how much they still love these particular songs.
• • •
Being in Miami had felt to me like the next best thing to being in Mexico, even though this city on the Atlantic tip of North America was far more Cuban in flavour. Miami was warm, and the nights tropical and alluring, but other than one sultry evening when I convinced the handsome Argentinian hotel limo driver to take me with him to dance salsa and bachata until the wee hours at Mango’s in South Beach, my trip was about work and completing the album.
Miami, however, left a lingering impression. Had I discovered a tropical paradise in America, where everyone spoke Spanish, and where Julio’s and Enrique’s songs were the soundtrack to daily life? The Miami nights were as balmy as the summer evenings of Toronto, which I missed living in the desert-dry air of Los Angeles. It made me wonder what it would be like to live there, and made part of me sigh nostalgically for the romance-infused Latin world I knew I was missing.
Jack realized that I was entranced with Miami. Always obliging and ready to discover a new part of the country, in the spring of 2002 he agreed to a month’s rental on Fisher Island, a private island that I had discovered. Situated in Biscayne Bay, it had once belonged to William K. Vanderbilt, who had acquired the island in 1925 by trading it for his luxury yacht! It now counted Oprah, Boris Becker, and a few tycoons among its part-time residents. The pretty townhouse we rented belonged to Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks.
How happy I felt as Jack and I took the little ferry to the mainland, walked every morning around the marina, read on the beach, and enjoyed dancing at the private club. My Californian girlfriend Alanna came to visit for ten days, and the three of us had a ball enjoying the island and nearby Miami Beach. On a whim Jack and I even made an offer on one of the condos, thinking it would be a fun place to visit twice a year and that over time it would become a good investment. Our minds were changed once we discovered that the resident membership fees were astronomical!
In spite of our exciting life together, the inner despair about my right-hand fingers was gradually taking its toll on my marriage. I felt that part of me, and in many ways the most important part of me — my musical soul — was being eroded, and with my failing guitar technique, my previous joy and passion for life was being drained away. Creating my new album had been a joy and had helped to distract me from the deteriorating ability of my hand to play, but of course the problem did not disappear, and neither did the depression it caused. Whether on Fisher Island in Beverly Hills, or on a Seabourn cruise we took from Manaus in Brazil up the Amazon River, I still spent hours every day sitting in front of mirrors trying to retrain my right-hand fingers. Jack tried his best to understand and kept suggesting I paint, teach, or write instead. He was unable, however, to understand the deep need I felt to keep the guitar and its music in my life. I painted a number of oil canvases, but painting pictures never brought me the same joy and fulfillment I experienced when creating music.
I decided to channel my energies into writing in Spanish and composed
