Shaila Dúrcal pays tribute to mom
In Latin-music circles, Rocío Dúrcal is an icon: A catlike diva from Spain whose passionate embrace of Mexican music made her a beloved figure among Hispanic audiences. Her recording of Juan Gabriel’s “Amor Eterno” is an undisputed classic.
Shaila Dúrcal carries on in the tradition of her mother, who died at age 61 in 2006. She has recorded several of her mom’s hits through the years, and is touring the States with a show dubbed “Homenaje a Mi Madre,” or “A Tribute to My Mother.” It’s a difficult juggling act: She wants to ensure that her mom’s legacy lives on, but she also wants to carve out her own identity.
“It’s challenging sometimes,” says Dúrcal, calling from her home in Houston. “When she passed away, her fans had a kind of emptiness. They needed her. And I get it: I’m kind of like her physically. I kind of sound like her. They were seeing me as if I was her. I’m proud and happy to continue her legacy, but I want to teach them I’m a different person.”
Indeed, Dúrcal bares an uncanny resemblance to her mother, both physically and in the dusky timbre of her voice. It’s perfectly natural, especially considering how Dúrcal was raised.
A show-biz upbringing
“I knew I wanted to be a singer by the age of 4,” Dúrcal says. “I spent my afternoons in the recording studio with my mom and I always imagined I was going to be a singer.”
Some children of celebrities take the experience for granted. Not Dúrcal, 37, who adored her mother’s glamour and grace.
“I noticed everything about my mom,” she says. “I loved watching how she dressed and how she put on her gowns. I loved seeing how she did her makeup. I would always stare at her, and I learned. It was just an amazing childhood.”
Dúrcal gets it from both sides. Her father, known as Junior, was a Filipino singer who gained fame in the ‘60s as an early rock-androller in Spain. He stopped performing in the late ‘70s to raise Dúrcal and her two siblings and to manage his wife’s career. He died three years ago.
“I have so much of my father in me,” Dúrcal says. “My height is from my dad, because my mom was tiny. And my voice reminds me of my dad. It has a certain sweetness and a more mellow tone than my mom. She was more passionate and strongvoiced. I got the sweetness from Dad.”
And, she giggles, her English. Her mom never had a good grasp of the language: “She tried to fake it,” she says.
Life in music
Dúrcal has lived a very international life. She was born and raised in Maments drid. She lived in Mexico City, Los Angeles and Miami before settling in Houston with her husband, musician Dorio Ferreira. “Basically, I live on airplanes,” she jokes.
She toured with her mother as a backing singer, and signed her first record deal in 2001. Like her mom, she records both pop material and full-throated Mexican weepers. Her most recent album, 2015’s “Shaila Dúrcal,” is particularly adventurous, adding ele- of American country music and urban flavors against mariachi horns.
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