Biography

Olga Tañón is an award-winning Puerto Rican merengue and Latin pop singer/songwriter and producer who, since 1992, has sold millions of recordings globally. The mezzo-soprano dubbed by fans "La Mujer de Fuego" (the woman of fire) has been awarded seven gold and five platinum albums. With 1996's Nuevos Senderos she became the first female Puerto Rican artist to be certified gold in the U.S. The winner of numerous Grammy and Latin Grammy awards, she's placed over 40 singles on the Hot Latin Songs chart, and won dozens of Premio Lo Nuestro awards. The Salon of the Fame of the Latin Songwriters awarded her the "La Voz de La Musa" and the Hispanic Award for the Arts. Tañón is also a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador who has lobbied for immigration reform. Her 2009 Concert of Peace Without Borders in Havana, Cuba registered 1.6 million attendees. She also performed two historical concerts in 2015 -- Promesa Fulfilled -- that were experienced by more than a million others. In 2017, she released the collaborative Olga Tañón y Punto on her Mia Musa Music label, offering styles ranging from merengue and salsa to vallenato and reggaeton. After touring to sold-out houses, she returned to recording with 2021's Pal' Combo Es Lo Que Hay. It included six covers associated with legendary salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, and a pair of remixes re-visioned for merengue. The youngest of four children, Tañón was born April 13, 1967, to middle-class parents. Her singing career began in the '80s with Las Nenas de Ringo y Jossie, before she joined the merengue group Chantelle, with whom she scored a big hit, "Aunque Tu No Quieras," in 1989. Chantelle were a rarity among merengue acts of the time, which were generally male, and the three women enjoyed a lot of success during their run, which came to an end with ¡Qué Bien! in 1993, a year after Tañón made her solo debut, Sola. Released by WEA Latina, the same label that was home to Chantelle, Sola wasn't a major success, yet it did well enough for Tañón to break away from Chantelle and continue her solo career. Her follow-up album, Mujer de Fuego (1993), proved markedly more successful, breaking into the Top Latin Albums chart and spawning a number of hits: "Contigo o sin Ti," "Muchacho Malo," "No Me Puedes Pedir," "Vendras Llorando," and "Presencie Tu Amor," the latter of which was a Top Ten hit on the Top Latin Tracks chart. Tañón's next album, Siente el Amor... (1994), was even more successful. Similar in style to her first two albums, Siente el Amor... once again employed the efforts of first-rate merengue arrangers Manuel Tejada, Juan Valdés, and Jamie Querol. And like past albums, it leaned heavily on a few choice songwriters, in this case Raldy Vázquez, Gustavo Márquez, and Rodolfo Barreras. The result was a refinement of what had proven so successful on Mujer de Fuego, and indeed, Siente el Amor... which upped the level of success. It broke into the Top Five of the Top Latin Albums chart (peaking at number two on the more specialized Tropical/Salsa chart) and generated a string of hit singles that lasted for a year-and-a-half: "Es Mentiroso," "Receta del Amor," "Aún Pienso en Ti," "Entre la Noche y el Día," "Ya Me Cansé," and "Una Noche Más" -- that is, half the album. Amid this ridiculous success, WEA Latina took the liberty of issuing a cash-in compilation, Exitos y Mas (1995), that rounded up songs from Tañón's three albums to date and, more notably, boasted a 12-minute megamix. At this point in time, Tañón was far and away the leading tropical music superstar of the day, arguably contested only by the New York salsa artist India, whose Dicen Que Soy (1994) was a similarly astonishing success. The Puerto Rican Senate even went so far as to approve legislation in 1995 that would enshrine November 9 as El Día de Olga Tañón. So it was quite a surprise to see her return to the marketplace with an album of Latin pop songs written by Mexican star Marco Antonio Solís, Nuevos Senderos (1996). The gambit proved commercially wise, however, as the album opened new floodgates of success; for instance, the lead single, "¡Basta Ya!," topped both the Hot Latin Tracks and Latin Pop Airplay charts while also performing well on the Tropical/Salsa and Regional Mexican Airplay ones. A pair of further hits, "Me Subes, Me Bajas, Me Subes" and "Mi Eterno Amor Secreto," confirmed the wisdom of repositioning Tañón as a Latin pop artist. And if any of her hardcore tropical fans were upset with the crossover move, the subsequent release of Llévame Contigo (1997) gave them nothing further to complain about, for it granted them their wish come true: a full-on return to the merengue of Tañón's initial albums, featuring return appearances by all of the featured songwriters (Vázquez, Márquez, and Barreras -- who had written the bulk of Siente el Amor... -- as well as Yaidelice Monrrozeau, who'd written several key songs on Sola and Mujer de Fuego). The album was a victory lap in the wake of all the success Tañón had accumulated during prior years. It was her first album to reach number one on the Top Latin Albums chart. Also in 1997, Tañón appeared as Mary Magdalene in a tropical music-themed Puerto Rican production of Jesus Christ Superstar that included some of her songs. Following such dizzy heights, Tañón's career took a series of twists and turns beginning in 1998, the year she went pop for good and her personal life started overtaking her artistic one. If Nuevos Senderos had been a one-off excursion into the regional Mexican market, with its Tex-Mex motifs and its Solís songs, Te Acordarás de Mí (1998) was a wholehearted embrace of crossover Latin pop. Chief among her various collaborators on the album was Kike Santander, who had previously worked alongside Gloria Estefan and Thalía on successful crossover efforts of their own, Abriendo Puertas (1995) and Amor a la Mexicana (1997), respectively. As he had done for Estefan and Thalía, Santander wrote, produced, and performed some bona fide hits, in this case "Tu Amor," a surprising flamenco workout, and "Hielo y Fuego"; however, as substantial as these hits where, particularly the former one, which was a Top Five single, they were a significant departure from the straightforward merengue that had carried Tañón to her queenliness (likewise "Escondidos," the album's other Top Five single, which is a duet written and performed by Latin pop balladeer Christian Castro). Shortly after the release of Te Acordarás de Mí in late October, Tañón married Juan Gonzalez, the most famous major-league baseball player from Puerto Rico. The short-lived marriage ended in divorce less than two years later, but not before it generated bountiful tabloid fodder. In short, Gonzalez divorced his wife Elaine López, herself a famous Puerto Rican athlete, after a newspaper published a photo of him and Tañón kissing during a concert in San Juan; Gonzalez fathered a daughter with Tañón, Gabriela González Tañón, who was diagnosed with Sebastian syndrome, an extremely rare blood-clotting disorder, and Gonzalez fathered an additional child, albeit with a different woman, while married to Tañón. The drama of her personal life notwithstanding, Tañón marched on with her career, releasing first a Grammy-winning live album, Olga Viva, Viva Olga (1999), and then another Latin pop effort, Yo por Ti (2001), which likewise won a Grammy for Best Merengue Performance. Olga Viva, Viva Olga, recorded at the House of Blues in Orlando, Florida, her newfound hometown, showcases well her engaging ability as a live performer. Yo por Ti, on the other hand, showcases well how her pop crossover ambitions were leading toward increasingly generic music. The album did manage a number one hit, "Como Olvidar," but overall Yo por Ti sounds staid relative to the liveliness of her prime past work such as Siente el Amor... and Llévame Contigo. The same can be said of her following album, Sobrevivir (2002), which also had a number one hit, "Asi Es la Vida," as well as a Top Ten Santander contribution, "No Podras," but overall sounds disappointingly generic. Tañón retreated from the studio for a while afterward, having remarried that same year and toured extensively. In turn, WEA Latina issued a stopgap compilation of her merengues, A Puro Fuego (2003), that included an excellent new single, "Cuándo Tú No Estas," and bought her some time away from the spotlight. When Tañón finally did return to the public arena, she did so in a big way, releasing a pair of albums in 2005. First came Como Olvidar: Lo Mejor de Olga Tañón (2005), a compilation of her pop crossover work, and three weeks later came Una Nueva Mujer, her first all-new album in two-and-a-half years. A back-to-basics tropical exercise reminiscent of her prime work yet thoroughly contemporary in style, thanks in part to José Luis Morín, who had a large hand in the album's songwriting and production, Una Nueva Mujer was led by a strong single, "Bandolero," and was blessed with ample critical and commercial success. Notably, it was Tañón's first album since Te Acordarás de Mí to break into the all-inclusive Billboard 200 chart, concurrently peaking at number five on the Top Latin Albums chart. In the wake of this comeback, Tañón left WEA, the label that had supported her since her days in Chantelle, after another compilation, 100% Merengue (2006). She moved to Univision, the leading Spanish-language company in the U.S., for Soy Como Tú (2006). The album's lead single, "Desilusióname," quickly became a big hit, and the album itself proved mighty successful, placing in the Top Ten of no less than 15 charts. Produced largely by Bob Benozzo and Ceferino Caban, it sounded distinctly different from past Tañón efforts, incorporating aspects of tropical music as well as Latin pop for a diverse style that offers something for both audiences. The next few years saw hits compilations and live records released to the public by various labels. Upon first inspection, 2009's 4/13 looked like another. While marketed as a new album, there was precious little that actually was. Three tracks -- "Amor Entre Tres," a salsa written in collaboration with Jorge Guzmán, "Pasión Morena," a merengue written with José Luis Morín, and "Navidad Boricua," a duet with Victoria Sanabria -- offered the best work she'd done in years. It whet fan's appetite for 2011's Ni Una Lagrima Mas. Comprising all-new studio material on new label Mia Musa, the set placed at number two on the Tropical Albums chart and also inside the Top Ten of the year-end genre chart. Tañón toured and went right back into the studio, emerging with Una Mujer in 2013. It contained five self-composed tracks and a slew of duets with newcomers and legends including Elvis Crespo, Fernandito Villalona, Johnny Ventura, Oscar D'León, and Maffio on the title cut -- which hit number 13 on the Tropical Songs chart. The album landed at number two. That year she also took part in Havana's Concert for Peace and the immigration march on Washington. In the spring of 2017, Tañón issued the duet single "Así Es el Amor" with Wisin. It was her 27th Top Ten on the Tropical Airplay chart and continued her record streak. The track teased the new album Olga Tañón y Punto, issued in May. The full-length offered appearances from Natalia Jiménez, Fernando Villalona, and Pirulo, and listed a diverse range of producers including Juan Mario Aracil, Manuel Tejada, Ceferino Cabán, and Eliot Feliciano. It peaked at number 15 on the Top Latin Albums chart. Mia Musa signed a special distribution agreement with Sony for the release, which won the Latin Grammy for Best Tropical Fusion Album. Over the next couple of years, Tañón lent her voice and influence to the causes of social justice and immigration reform in the U.S. She returned in October 2021 with the singles "Brujería" and "Achilipú." Both were covers associated with the legendary salsa group El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, repurposed as merengues. In November 2021 she issued the full-length Pal' Combo Es Lo Que Hay. It included six El Gran Combo covers as well as a pair of remixes. ~ Jason Birchmeier, Rovi