httpss://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2MsqDB1l4
Highly sought after a veritable who’s who recorded Sebastian’s songs including Banda Machos, Conjunto Primavera, Graciela Beltran and Vicente and Alejandro Fernandez.
Billboard honored Sebastian’s trajectory multiple times, giving him Hall of Fame honors at the 2006 Billboard Latin Music Awards and the Voice Award in the 2013 Billboard Mexican Music Awards.
“I do not make up tunes – I live tunes,” Sebastian told Billboard.
In 1977, he switched labels, signing to Musart, and changed his name to Juan Sebastian, because he liked the significance of the composite name: Juan, this means free, and Sebastian, which implies lover.
Sebastian’s success as a composer and an artist was nearly instant and continued unabated through time, through genres and through devastating hardship; two of his sons – Juan Sebastian and Trigo de Jesus – were killed in the last few years, and for more than a decade he fought bone cancer.
In 2013, along with his cancer in remission, Sebastian, now signed to Universal, recorded 13 Celebrando el 13, a group of 13 tunes, many recorded previously by other musicians.