When she was just 18, this young singing sensation wowed audiences at the
Italian Song Festival (San Remo Festival). Laura Pausini ended up winning the audience award, and her
career was born. Like many Italian artists, Pausini records in both Italian
and Spanish so she can reach the vast Latin American market. The strategy
has paid off: Phil Collins has written songs for her, she won a Lo Nuestro
award as Most Promising Latin Artist, and Laura was nominated for four Latin
Grammy awards in 2001.
(Sarah Bardeen)

Laura Pausini’s songs

Laura Pausini is a Grammy Award–winning, Italian pop singer, popular in several European , Arabic and Latin American countries, famed for her soulful voice, her romantic adult contemporary ballads and love songs. Laura is fluent and has recorded songs in Italian, Spanish and English. Laura Pausini has also recorded some songs in Portuguese, a language of which she has a good knowledge, and French, which she does not speak at all.

Spaniard Alejandro Sanz has risen to the top of Latin American charts in
recent years. Rightly lauded as a singer, songwriter and producer, Sanz has
revived sagging careers (including Julio Iglesias’s) and lent his golden
touch to a slew of pop singers’ hits. While ballads butter his bread, Sanz
can sing with the husky intensity of a Gipsy King when he wants to - which
isn’t too often.
- Sarah Bardeen

Tejano and norteno music is given a tougher edge with heavy bass and percussion in this mix of slow boleros and punchy polkas. Rapid accordion lines accent emotional leads and tight, sincere harmony vocals.
- Robert Leaver

Most of the rock generation is familiar with Tito Puente through Santana’s cover of “Oye Como Va” and his appearance in The Mambo Kings. By venturing closer to the source, they will discover what Latin jazz fans have known for years: Puente’s intoxicating mix of Big Band jazz and Latin music creates Mambo madness at its finest. Tito Puente is credited with fusing Cuban charangas with Big Band swing and Bop. Puente always had one eye on dance fans and indeed, his music puts the ghost of St. Vitus in your body. But his other eye was planted on jazz fans — he loved arranging for composers such as Horace Silver and his soulmate Dizzy Gillespie. There are many similarities between Puente and Diz’s various big bands — chief among them the spirit of global brotherhood that they celebrate. But Tito Puente never let his jazz side distract from his music’s mass popularity; when the Big Band era was long gone, Puente not only kept his band together but saw it thrive. With more than a hundred albums to his credit, at least one or two should be a part of every collection.
- Nick Dedina