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Dad joined the US Army by this point, and initially he was stationed in Texas and then South Carolina. But the Vietnam war brought our normal life to an end. Once again, Dad was gone. Communications were very basic back then: Dad couldn't just pick up a cellphone and let us know he was okay. Months would go by without a letter or anything. Eventually he bought two tape recorders -- one he kept with him and one for our house. Dad used to talk into the recorder and send the tapes home. Then we would gather round our machine and tell Dad stories. And I would sing. I still have all the tapes, but I can't listen to them. It hurts too much. After Dad came back from Nam, he wasn't well. He'd been poisoned by Agent Orange and needed quite a lot of looking after. Mum was busy trying to get her Cuban qualifications revalidated by a US university, so I had to take care of Dad and my little sister [Becky]. It was tough. Toward the end, Dad was too far gone and he didn't really know what was hapening around him. I joined Miami Sound Machine in 1975 and we were getting quite successful, but Dad didn't even know who I was. He had to be moved to the hospital. On my wedding day in 1978 [September 2] I went to visit him, still wearing my wedding dress. That was the last time that he said my name. Dad died in 1980, but he touches my life every day. On my last album [Unwrapped] I did a lot of writing while I was looking at a picture of him in his younger days -- so happy and in the prime of his life. I'm not sure if he sees me, but I can feel him all around me. I hope he knows that I am so very proud of him.
--
The [London] Sunday Times (November 17, 2006)

 

Gloria Estefan

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For fourteen years [1966 to 1980] [my father] suffered a debilitating disease [multiple schlerosis]. I took care of him for most of that time, until he was no longer able to be taken care of at home . . . So, in essence, I was caring for [my father] and my younger sister [Becky], six years younger than I. It was difficult for me. It was a tough time. Music was my escape -- my catharsis. My way of just getting my emotions out. Music has always been a beautiful force in my life.

 

Gloria Estefan

 

My father rarely spoke of life before [he left Cuba]. About prison, he jsut said, "That man is a genius at PR." Castro would come to the jail in the middle of the night and ask the prisoners, "What are you doing here? Don't you see we're trying to do the right thing?" The reason I'm not more political is because I have music. And from a young age, I needed it. After prison, my father came to America, joined the Army, fought in Vietnam -- and was exposed to Agent Orange. He died a slow, horrible death. Music was my escape.

 

Gloria Estefan

 

[While her father was a political prisoner in Cuba] I was always singing and dancing and reciting poems -- that was how I used to do my crying over my father. There were a lot of negotiations between the US and Cuban governments over the next couple of years [1961 - 1963]. [Castro proposed an exchange of prisoners for food, medicine and building machinery], and eventually my dad was released. It was wonderful to have him home -- it was probably the happiest time in my life. For once, the whole family was together, living a normal life. That was when my sister, Becky, was born, and it was also when I started guitar lessons. I would lock myself away in my room for days, learning how to play. Even then I was beginning to work out that music was a way to cut throught all the BS.

 

Gloria Estefan

 

I don't know whether it was the German major, but one yelled something out in German that we couldn't understand. And then the machine guns on top swung around and opened fire on us. There were about thirty of them. They were commanding us from a hillside less than thirty yards away. They couldn't miss. And they didn't!
They killed all of Savage's squad; they got all of mine but two; they wounded Cutting and killed two of his squad; and Early's squad was well back in the brush on the extreme right and not yet under the direct fire of the machine guns, and so they escaped. All except Early. He went down with three bullets in his body. That left me in command. I was right out there in the open.
And those machine guns were spitting fire and cutting down the undergrowth all around me something awful. And the Germans were yelling orders. You never heard such a racket in all of your life. I didn't have time to dodge behind a tree or dive into the brush, I didn't even have time to kneel or lie down.
I don't know what the other boys were doing. They claim They didn't fire a shot. They said afterwards they were on the right, guarding the prisoners. And the prisoners were lying down and the machine guns had to shoot over them to get me. As soon as the machine guns opened fire on me, I began to exchange shots with them.

 

Alvin C. York

 

If the listener does eventually come to the point where he makes the ultimate performance by splicing tapes from other musicians' recordings, he will eventually become just as bored with it as with other recordings, for it will still always be the same. Look, for instance, at electronic music. The boys are already becoming bored with what they do because they put it irrevocably on tape. The best indication of this is that more and more they are mixing the live performance element with their tapes.

 

Aaron Copland