Marc Anthony is the first record in English by a singer who has twice sold out Madison Square Garden, starred in a Broadway musical (Paul Simon's 'The Capeman'), appeared in significant roles in several movies, including Martin Scorsese's 'Bringing Out the Dead' and sold more records throughout the world than any other salsa singer. In places where Spanish is spoken, and especially in Puerto Rico, Anthony is held in a regard that approaches reverence. A man in Spanish Harlem, quoted in a profile of Anthony in The New Yorker, said of him, "He is like a flame that walks."
'When I Dream at Night,' the first song on Marc Anthony, was written by Dan Shea and Robin Thicke. Its chorus begins 'Cause I only feel alive/ When I dream at night/ Even though she's not real it's all right.'
"It's sort of a custom-made love song," Anthony says. "The three of us were talking about subjects for songs, and I told them a story I was going through. 'There's a situation,' I said, 'There's this girl in my dreams that I see all the time.'"
Anthony feels disinclined to choose his favorite among the songs on the record. "They're all like my kids," he says -- but he is especially fond of two of them, 'Am I the Only One,' and 'My Baby You.'
"As far as painting a picture," he says, "the first song lyrically that I'm proudest of is 'Am I the Only One.' I tried to capture loneliness between this couple that have gone wrong and aren't exactly sure why.
"'My Baby You' is written for my daughter, Arianna, who is six. I wrote it so that she could understand it. It's a daddy professing his love."
Anthony is thirty-one. Born in New York's Spanish Harlem, he was given the name Marco Antonio Muniz by his father, Felipe, a musician, for a famous Mexican singer and became Marc Anthony to avoid becoming confused with the older man. As recently as six years ago, Anthony was singing in English in dance clubs in New York City. A respectable audience was a hundred people. He specialized in a tersely minimal form of dance music called house music, in which a singer repeats a phrase over and over, with slight variations, to the accompaniment of a rhythm track recorded on a DAT. He also frequently sang background on records with a band called the Latin Rascals, who worked with a producer called Little Louis Vega. When Vega received a contract from Atlantic Records, in 1991, he asked Anthony to be his singer. None of their records were especially successful, but one of them, "Rebel," was a hit in the clubs. It occasionally still turns up in second-hand record stores in Manhattan.
In 1992, the Latin percussionist and bandleader Tito Puente asked Vega and Anthony to open his revue at Madison Square Garden. After singing before such an enormous crowd, Anthony lost his appetite for appearing in clubs. His manager suggested that he sing in Spanish but he wasn't interested. When he was a small boy, his father would invite musicians to the family's apartment on Saturday nights and they would set up in the kitchen and play half the night. Anthony's father would put him on the table to sing. "I had two sets," Anthony says. "Six and eight." His repertoire consisted of a single song, "El Zolsar," about a kind of bird that lives in Puerto Rico. "He had only that one song," his father says, "but he could belt it." Growing up, Anthony listened mostly to rhythm & amp, blues and rock. Several months into his hiatus, he was driving in a car in Manhattan and he heard a song on the radio by a singer named Juan Gabriel. "It was called 'Hasta Que Te Conoci,'" Anthony says, "which means, 'Until I Met You,' and it ripped me apart. I don't know why and I don't want to know why. I called my manager and asked if I could record this in salsa."
Acclaim arrived so suddenly in Anthony's life that he describes its appearance by saying, "I saw my old life shattered." In 1993, he recorded the song he'd heard in the car. His manager then sent him to perform at a Latin music convention called Radio y Musica. Anthony brought with him a DAT that contained the song's musical tracks. He was living at the time on so little money that the clothes he performed in were borrowed. In the audience were mainly disc jockeys. When he took the stage one person clapped. His hand on the microphone trembled. He closed his eyes and thought, 'Make believe you're singing in your living room to your mom,' and when he finished he left the stage so quickly that his manager had to grab him and point out that he was receiving a standing ovation. Several of the disc jockeys were dialing their cell phones. "Find this kid's CD" he heard one of them say. "I threw it out this morning -- it's in the trash. Find it and play it!"
Later that day, he appeared on a television show called "Carnival Internacional" which is broadcast all over the world. "That changed my life forever," he says. "I mean in one day. It seemed like years before I was ever in New York again. I was booked and booked and booked -- Panama, Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Miami, Los Angeles. I woke up once in the middle of the night in a hotel and didn't know where I was. I called my brother's room and said, 'Where are we?' He said, 'Look out the window.' All I could see was a city at night. Tokyo. I thought, 'How did this happen?'"
Anthony was the first actor Paul Simon cast in "The Capeman". Simon had gone to a record store and asked for the records of the best young salsa singer. "They gave me two or three guys" Simon says, "and I listened to Marc's and thought, This is good. In fact, really good. In fact, he was clearly the best." During the musical's rehearsals, Anthony was releasing his third salsa album, Contra la Corriente (Against the Current) which was certified RIAA gold out of the box. Because of his obligation to the musical he wasn't able to promote the record, so as a farewell of a kind, he gave a concert at Madison Square Garden. No salsa singer had ever gone into the Garden except as a member of a revue. Anthony sold every seat in the house, and a year later did it again.
Having sung exclusively in Spanish, except in "The Capeman" Anthony has managed to remain relatively undiscovered in America. With the release of Marc Anthony he is likely, once again, to see his old life shattered.
Courtesy MarcAnthonyOnline.com
