Hotel Nacional

Album: Miss Little Havana (2011)
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Songfacts®:

  • The third single from Gloria Estefan's eleventh studio album features a mixture of Spanish and English lyrics and also combines modern dance music with a 1920s and 30s swing sound. Estefan told Billboard magazine: "We wanted a very woody, old fashioned sound, cause its jitterbuggy this song. It's got clarinets, it's got saxes, and a whole different vibe - it just sounds like you could be in the 20s but with hardcore dance."
  • The song debuted at #1 on Billboard's Latin countdown - the first time a female artist had achieved that feat since the chart was introduced in 1986. (Male artists recorded all the previous ten tracks that bowed at the top spot). It was Estefan's 15th chart-topper in total on Latin Singles.
  • The Hotel Nacional de Cuba is an historic luxury hotel located in Havana, Cuba. During the middle of the 20th century, when Cuba was a prime travel destination for Americans, its illustrious guests included Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Rocky Marciano, Errol Flynn, John Wayne, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando and Ernest Hemingway.
  • The song's music video was helmed by director and choreographer Kenny Ortega, who has also worked on High School Musical and This Is It. The clip was shot in Miami and features Estefan as a hotel torch singer. Also look out for All My Children actress Susan Lucci in the audience (she is also name-checked in the lyrics) and the singer's daughter Emily as the band's drummer. "For the video, I wore an Alexander McQueen ring," Estefan told Billboard magazine: "It made me bleed and I had to suck my own blood… so it was very helpful for the video! It's a big skull, and I love it, but when I was dancing and moving my hands around I really did a number on the rest of my hand."

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