Whatever happened to ... Jose Feliciano

Jose Feliciano started making music as a child.

The breakthrough: Jose Feliciano was a major star in Latin America by 1966, but became an international star in 1968 when he climbed to No 3 on the US charts with the Latin soul rendition of The Doors' classic Light My Fire, and followed that up in 1970 with the perennial favourite Feliz Navidad (I Wanna Wish You a Merry Christmas), and the theme to the 1974 TV series Chico and The Man.

The background: Born blind in 1945, in the small Puerto Rican town of Lares, one of 11 brothers, Feliciano says: "I could take anything and make music out of it when I was a kid."

The first music he remembers is the intensely romantic boleros that his mother listened to on the radio. He was playing the concertina at 6, and by the time he was 9 he was spending up to 14 hours a day at the guitar, mastering the fast, intricate and forceful picking technique that is his signature.

The family moved to New York in 1950 and, by the end of the decade, Feliciano, like his peers, had fallen under the spell of rock'n'roll.

"A lot of Puerto Ricans wanted to be American, so we listened to rock'n'roll," he remembers. "I loved it. I used to do all of Ray Charles' piano licks on the guitar. I didn't have a choice," he adds, grinning. "We couldn't afford a piano."

But that wasn't all he was listening to. Classical guitar, jazz, American standards and the Spanish songs of his childhood were all part of a unique musical palette.

His first solo gigs were at Gerdes Folk City in Greenwich Village when he was 17. Gerdes was the home of the American folk movement. "I played rock'n'roll and Spanish songs, which were then considered folk. I did Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, and met Dylan when he came to see me play. And Joan Baez. The whole of folk was there."

It was at Gerdes that he got his major break, when an RCA rep came to see a group, but signed Feliciano instead. His 1965 debut, The Voice and Guitar of Jose Feliciano, established him as a powerful, wholly original interpreter of songs.

"I first sang boleros on record in 1966," he says. "I was in Argentina for a music festival. RCA had invited me, and they didn't know what to do with me. I didn't fit the profile they wanted. So I said, let me record these Spanish songs. They did, and man, within a week of putting it out, it was Jose mania. I couldn't leave my room for screaming girls!"

He still can't believe it. "I was surprised and embarrassed. This happened to Sinatra and Elvis and The Beatles. Not to Jose."

Feliciano was then marketed to English-speaking audiences with the release of Light My Fire. His version sold more than a million copies, and earned two Grammy Awards, for best new artist of 1968 and for best contemporary pop vocal performance.

Feliciano!, the album which featured Light My Fire, reached No 2 in the US and became his first gold album.

That was his peak, though, and despite changing record labels over the decades he has not been able to reconnect with English-speaking audiences.

Feliciano, who has been in music 50 years, has produced more than 60 albums and won six Grammys. He has amassed 40 gold and platinum albums internationally. His Spanish-language recordings of the 1980s received critical acclaim and were awarded Grammys for best Latin pop performance, in 1983, 1986, 1989 and 1990.

Last seen and heard: As well as doing about 120 gigs a year, from classical concerts to club dates, Feliciano continues to write and record at his home studio in Connecticut. He appeared in the movie Moulin Rouge! (2001) following a brief spot in Fargo (1996). He released an album in Spanish this year, A Mexico ... con Amor. And now? "I'm working on an album of American classics. But I'm doing them with Latin flair. There'll be a big difference. Songs like Night and Day, I'm a Fool to Want You ... But then, I've always done things different."

- INDEPENDENT