Bus Terminal Nights Before Becoming Mexico's 'El Divo'

Juan Gabriel was born Alberto Aguilera Valadez on 7 January 1950 in Parácuaro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán, the tenth child of a farming family. His early years were marked by hardship. His mother later moved the family to Ciudad Juárez, in Chihuahua, as family problems mounted, and at the age of five he was sent to a boarding school, where he stayed for about eight years.

At fourteen he went back to live with his mother and began singing in a church choir. Music was now the direction of his life, but a living from it was far from secure.

In his late teens he travelled around Mexico looking for work as a singer, or for recording sessions that needed backing vocals. As described by the Tucson Weekly, he would sometimes find a couch to sleep on, but more often he slept in bus and train terminals. The article does not say where these terminals were or how long the period lasted.

His luck turned at the start of the 1970s. In 1970 RCA Records signed him, and his first album, El Alma Joven, followed. He rose to stardom soon after with the hit No Tengo Dinero, a title that sums up the years behind him.

His career then spanned many genres, from mariachi to banda, and he became one of the best-selling and most loved singer-songwriters in Latin American music. He died at the age of 66 in Santa Monica, California, two days after what turned out to be his last concert.