Thousands expected to commemorate Selena's 1995 death

BY DAVID SEDENO

Knight Ridder Newspapers


CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - (KRT) - She has been gone for 10 years,
fatally shot at age 23 by her former fan club president. But Selena
Quintanilla Perez is still everywhere in this Gulf Coast city where
she lived.

Her golden voice fills the airwaves. Her stunning face adorns soft
drink cups. Her hip clothing boutique remains open for business.

And a generation of young Hispanic girls wants to grow up to be just
like her.

"I listen to her music, and I have a lot of friends who still listen
to her and who try to dress and look like her," said Clarissa S
nchez, a 16-year-old from Waxahachie who was visiting the singer's
memorial on Corpus Christi Bay. "She was someone you could look up
to."

On Thursday, tens of thousands of people are expected to converge on
Corpus Christi to pay homage to the Grammy-winning artist. They will
hold a candlelight vigil, listen to her music, watch the movie about
her life and visit her seaside grave and the bronze statue that
highlights the memorial.

But even as the fame that allowed her to be known simply as Selena
continues after her death, the Tejano music genre that she helped
popularize appears to be fading away.

"Tejano music, the way everyone remembers it, is dead," said Robert
Fernandez, 56, who formed the band Los Tejanos in the early 1970s in
San Angelo. "People who don't believe it are just fooling
themselves."

Robert Arellano, president of the Texas Talent Musicians
Association, which sponsors the Tejano Music Awards,hopes new
artists will help improve slumping sales.

But San Antonio journalist Ramiro Burr, who has written about Tejano
music for nearly 20 years, agreed with Fernandez.

"When a movement comes in, you have to have a steady source of
innovative and creative artists," said Burr, who covers Latino music
for the "San Antonio Express-News." "You had the first wave, but
there wasn't a second wave. They were all copycats, and people got
tired of everybody doing the same thing.

"In the larger perspective, Tejano music has just returned to its
rural family origins. It was always a regional music that was folk-
based, and that's what it's coming back to."

`A SIGNATURE ERA'

Selena's ascension was a heady time for Tejano music, a mixture of
traditional Mexican folk music and European styles that grew out of
the despair of migrant workers in the cotton and onion fields of
South Texas.

"She was a natural. She had the charisma and she represented us
Latinos," said Hector Galan, an Austin filmmaker who chronicled the
history of Tejano music in the 1996 documentary "Songs of the
Homeland."

"For years, Tejano music was looked down upon by people in Mexico.
But Selena conquered Mexico and if she were alive today, there would
be no question that she would be a major crossover star in this
country."

The late bandleader Isidro Lopez is credited with creating the genre
in the mid-1950s when he combined the saxophone and the accordion.

"It's the music of people who can relate to their parents and
grandparents as they came into this country and were striving for a
better life," Arellano said.

Some of the performers quickly became household names.

Among them is Little Joe Hernandez of Temple, who began his singing
career in the late 1950s and who still performs today. His early
sound included heavy brass and string ensembles and led the way for
other Tejano bands that embraced the "orquesta," or orchestra sound.

Tejano bands still play his rendition of "Las Nubes," a tale of hard
work and struggle that became the theme song for the United Farm
Workers union.

In the 1970s, Tejano bands joined rock and disco in adding organs
and synthesizers. But in the next two decades, Tejano returned to
its roots, turning back to accordions and phasing out the heavy
brass sounds.

Major record labels converged on San Antonio, signing Tejano acts
left and right.

More than 20 Tejano radio stations popped up around the state, with
some dominating their markets. Bands that once played weddings and
private parties for a few hundred dollars soon began performing at
clubs that could hold thousands.

At Tejano's height in 1994, Selena and acts known as Mazz, La Mafia
and Emilio were selling more than 250,000 copies of their albums,
said Burr, the San Antonio music critic.

"That was more than 10 times what good Tejano bands were doing
before that time," Burr said.

The artists' wardrobe evolved, too. The tuxedos and sequined jackets
of the 1950s and `60s gave way to the disco look in the `70s and
casual wear in the 1980s.

Beginning in the late 1980s, the dress became undeniably Tejano:
Shiny roper boots and large belt buckles adorned starched jeans;
crisp Western shirts were topped off with pressed cowboy hats.

"This was a signature era for Tejanos," said Galan, the
filmmaker. "It was not only the music. It was the clothes."

THE TEJANO SOUND

The music and the clothes - that's where Selena came in.

She began performing at age 9 with her father, sister and brother in
the family band, Los Dinos. It wasn't long before the band became
known as Selena y Los Dinos. Then, she was simply Selena.

As Selena matured, so did her voice - and her desire to accessorize.

At 15, she began designing clothes and accessories. By her early
20s, her wardrobe - including tight pants and bustiers - was as much
as part of her shows as her music. She became known as the Latin
Madonna.

She wove pop, country and Caribbean dance music into the Tejano
sound, broadening the genre's appeal and creating a string of hits,
including "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "Entra a Mi Mundo" and "Amor
Prohibido."

By the time of her death, she had sold more than 3 million copies of
her albums. She earned numerous honors from the Tejano Music Awards
and, in 1993, won a Grammy in the Mexican-American category
for "Selena Live."

She landed a movie role, as a mariachi singer in "Don Juan DeMarco,"
played to sellout crowds in Mexico and began earning millions. In
February 1995, she sold out the Astrodome in Houston.

The news a few weeks later that Selena had been shot stunned her
fans - and created an entire audience for her music.

Police say former fan club president Yolanda Saldivar, who was
managing the singer's boutique, shot Selena in the back after an
argument over whether Saldivar had embezzled money. Saldivar, who
maintains that the shooting was an accident, is serving a life
sentence.

After Selena's death, her fame only grew. Her album "Dreaming of
You," released posthumously, shot to No. 1 on the "Billboard" charts.

About 20 CDs have been re-released. By May, another six DVD/CD
packages will be on the market. More than 20,000 people visit her
museum each year.

"She was very, very good, but she wasn't at her peak yet," Burr
said. "In hindsight, people became more aware what a good person she
was. There were no drug scandals and she was family-oriented. She
was married and was about to start a family. It just makes for a
fascinating story."

Rebecca RodrĄguez, 37, of Waxahachie recalled attending a Selena
concert at a club in Grand Prairie with her husband.

"He went up to her and said, `Can I get a kiss?' She said, `Oh,
yeah, sure!' " said RodrĄguez, who was visiting the Selena memorial
with Sanchez. "She had just finished performing, but she was smiling
and she was happy. That's what made her different."

Marissa Brito, 14, of Fresno, Calif., and her mother, Leticia Nuno,
visited Selena's museum last week.

"I still want to cry," Brito said as she looked at one of the
singer's gowns. "She saw the light and she followed her dreams. She
danced. She sang. She designed her own clothes.

"She changed the world for a lot of girls."

_

SELENA QUINTANILLA PEREZ

Known to millions of fans simply as Selena, the Texas native won
dozens of awards during her short career, landed a movie role
in "Don Juan DeMarco" (1995) and was worth an estimated $5 million
at the time of her death, according to "Hispanic Business" magazine.

BORN: April 16, 1971, in Lake Jackson

DIED: March 31, 1995, in Corpus Christi

PARENTS: Abraham and Marcella Quintanilla

HUSBAND: Chris Perez, a guitarist in the band

BAND: Selena y Los Dinos

_

AWARDS

1987: Tejano Music Awards female vocalist of the year and performer
of the year

1988: TMA female entertainer of the year

1989-92: TMA female vocalist of the year and female entertainer of
the year

1993: Grammy Award, best Mexican-American performance, for "Selena
Live"; female singer, song and album of the year awards from the
music awards show Premio Lo Nuestro; TMA female vocalist of the
year, female entertainer of the year and album of the year/orchestra
for "Entra A Mi Mundo."

1994: TMA female vocalist of the year, female entertainer of the
year and album of the year/orchestra for "Selena Live."

1995: Grammy nomination for the single "Amor Prohibido"; TMA female
vocalist of the year, female entertainer of the year, album of the
year/orchestra for "Amor Prohibido"; single of the year for "Amor
Prohibido"; song of the year for "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

1996: TMA female vocalist of the year, female entertainer of the
year, album of the year/overall for "Dreaming of You," song of the
year for "Tu Solo Tu," show band of the year and Tejano crossover
for "I Could Fall in Love."

1997: TMA female vocalist of the year, song of the year for "Siempre
Hace Frio" and Tejano crossover for "No Quiero Saber."