Juan Gabriel

Juan Gabriel (born Alberto Aguilera Valadez on January 7, 1950, in Parácuaro, Michoacán, and died August 28, 2016, in Santa Monica, California) was a Mexican singer-songwriter, composer and producer who became one of the best-selling Latin artists in history and the top-selling Mexican artist of all time, with well over 100 million records sold and around 1,800 songs written. Raised in poverty and later in children’s homes after his family moved to Ciudad Juárez, he sang in local churches and bars under the name Adán Luna before adopting the stage name Juan Gabriel and signing to RCA Víctor in the early 1970s. His debut album El Alma Joven... (1971) yielded the hit “No tengo dinero” and launched a run of 1970s releases, including Juan Gabriel con el Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlán (1974), which introduced standards such as “Se me olvidó otra vez” and confirmed his blend of pop balladry, ranchera and mariachi. Through the late 1970s and 1980s he wrote and recorded hits like “Querida,” “Yo no nací para amar,” “Siempre en mi mente,” “Hasta que te conocí” and “El Noa Noa,” while also composing and producing for artists including Rocío Dúrcal, Lucha Villa, Isabel Pantoja and José José; his 1984 album Recuerdos, Vol. II became one of the best-selling albums in Mexican history. In 1990, he became the first non-classical act to perform at Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes with a series of sold-out benefit concerts for the National Symphony Orchestra. He remained a chart force into the 1990s and 2000s with songs such as “Abrázame muy fuerte” and collaborations with A.B. Quintanilla y Los Kumbia Kings, then enjoyed a late-career resurgence with the duet albums Los Dúo (2015) and Los Dúo 2 (2015), and Vestido de Etiqueta por Eduardo Magallanes (2016), all of which topped Billboard’s Latin charts shortly before his death. His legacy continued to grow posthumously: in 2023 Rolling Stone included him among the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time, in 2024 the Library of Congress added “Amor eterno” to the National Recording Registry, and in 2025 his estate issued the posthumous album Eterno with unreleased recordings alongside a Netflix documentary series Juan Gabriel: Debo, puedo y quiero, both of which renewed global attention on “El Divo de Juárez.”

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