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1995 flashback: Selena soared beyond traditional limits on Tejano music

Editor's note: This is an appreciation of Selena written immediately after her death by staff Dallas Morning News staff writer Mario Tarradell, who covered Tejano music. It was originally published on April 1, 1995.

By the end of 1994, Selena's career had already shattered the glass ceiling that keeps most Tejano artists from achieving the mass success familiar to Anglo pop stars or middle-of-the-road Latin crooners such as Julio Iglesias.

Consider her accomplishments: She won a Grammy Award for 1993's Selena Live! album, signed a tour sponsorship contract with Coca-Cola and sold an unprecedented 500,000 copies of 1994's Grammy-nominated Amor Prohibido CD. In 1995, she would have been poised for even greater mainstream acceptance with the release of her first English-language album on SBK Records, home of fellow Latin crossover acts Jon Secada and Barrio Boyzz. Four songs - ballads and up-tempo numbers - had been completed.

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It was the music that reeled in Selena's fans. ... She was able to make believers out of people who had never heard Tejano music.

But Selena Quintanilla Perez will never know how far she could have gone: At 23, the Corpus Christi-based singer was slain Friday afternoon at a motel there.

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Her death sent shock waves throughout the Tejano music world and her home state of Texas. If ever there was an artist destined for across-the-board notability, it was Selena. She fought for and won artistic independence from the predominantly male honchos in the business, allowing her to help write songs, assist in record and video production and fashion her sexy-yet-stylish image.

Selena in 1993, performing at the Astrodome.
Selena in 1993, performing at the Astrodome. (Dave Einsel / AP)

"I started wearing cropped shirts, and they started getting higher and higher and then, finally, I was wearing just a bra," Selena told The Dallas Morning News in October. The fashion-conscious performer even opened a combination boutique-salon last year in Corpus Christi and later in San Antonio. "Now, it's kind of a gimmick -- 'Selena wears bras and bolero jackets.' "

But her personal life -- she was married to Chris Perez, guitarist in her band, Los Dinos -- was more subdued.

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"What I do on stage, you won't catch me doing offstage," she said. "I mean, I think deep down I'm still kind of, like, timid and modest about a lot of things. But on stage, I release all that; I let it go."

It was the music that reeled in Selena's fans. Although not a technically perfect vocalist, her soprano exuded warmth and passion. She was able to make believers out of people who had never heard Tejano music. By putting a pop sheen on the jaunty German-polka-meets-traditional-Mexican-music sound that is Tejano, Selena crafted infectiously happy songs such as "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom."

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Combine that with an artist with contagious energy and an innate ability to perform on stage, and you have instant recognition.

"She had an incredibly instinctive ability to entertain," said Jimmy Perkins, the Nashville-based manager of fellow Tejano artists Flaco Jimenez and newcomers La Diferenzia, who helped promote Selena's shows from 1990 to 1994. "The thing about Selena is she transcended her format in terms of talent and ability."

Although Tejano is making inroads at mainstream Latin pop radio, there are still only a chosen few artists who get played among the likes of Luis Miguel, Cristian, Gloria Estefan and Jon Secada. Count Selena in that small circle.

She was signed to San Antonio-based EMI Latin in 1989, and her 1992 album, Entre a Mi Mundo, marked her acceptance into the pop side of the Latin music industry.

At 1993's Premio Lo Nuestro awards, sponsored by Billboard magazine and long recognized as the Latin equivalent of the Grammys, Selena swept the Regional Mexican category by taking home female-singer, song and album-of-the-year awards.

She had definitely arrived. Latin radio - and not just the Tejano stations - took Selena seriously after the 1994 Grammy win for her first live album. The doors were wide open for the Amor Prohibido singles - "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom," "Amor Prohibido," "No Me Queda Mas" and a Spanish version of the Pretenders' "Back on the Chain Gang" titled "Fotos y Recuerdos" - to dominate the radio: All reached the top five of the Latin singles chart.

"She has really opened doors for new artists," said Ricardo Castillon, lead singer for La Diferenzia. "She has opened up a lot of markets. Her style of music, her unique voice . . . she wasn't just limited to one kind of music. She could sing pop, ballads, cumbia, she could do it all."

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Fans hooked by the music were also enthralled with the woman.

"I have an 8-year-old girl and a 12-year-old girl, and I couldn't ask for a better role model," said Carrollton fan Santiago Ponce. "I looked at her as a perfect role model for my kids as far as going after what you really like to do in life."

John Samford, president of Arlington-based Media West, who has worked with the star during her State Fair of Texas appearances, remembers first meeting Selena in 1991 in El Paso: "When you met her, she never forgot who you were. I saw Selena a few months later, and she remembered my name. She walked up to me and gave me a big hug, said it was good to see me again. I never forgot that."

Selena made a lasting impression on Cameron Randle, vice president and general manager of Austin-based Arista/Texas, when he was managing Tejano artist Emilio Navaira, who toured with Selena in the early '90s.

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"She was as sweet and as relentlessly upbeat offstage as she appeared to be on stage," said Mr. Randle. "She was the artist who established the standard against which all other Tejano artists were weighed, and that was not limited to just the female artists. Selena's death will profoundly change the texture of Tejano music because she was the most substantial hope for crossing Tejano over (to the American pop market). It will be a shame if Anglo mainstream-music fans don't take this final opportunity to explore her music, even if it is for tragic reasons."