Fresh off his brief appearance in the musical film In the Heights, singer Marc Anthony is ready to hit the road again to perform his music live in North American arenas.
Considered one of the top-selling tropical/salsa singers of all time, the multiple Grammy and Latin Grammy winner will launch the Marc Anthony Tour Aug. 27 in San Antonio, Texas. He’s reportedly the first artist to perform at the AT&T Center since the venue shuttered early in the pandemic in March of 2020.
San Antonio will be the first stop of the artist’s tour, visiting 23 American and Canadian cities through the end of this year.
The “Vivir mi vida” singer will then visit Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Washington D.C., Charlotte, Uncasville, New York City, Chicago, Kansas City, Tulsa, Denver, Las Vegas, San Diego, Ontario, Phoenix, Fort Myers, Orlando, Miami. He’ll cross into Canada to perform in two cities, Montreal and Toronto, before coming back for two performances in California, first in San Jose and then Los Angeles, where he’ll end the portion of his American tour Dec. 18.
New York-born Puerto Rican Marc Anthony has sold more than 12 million albums worldwide and won three Grammys and six Latin Grammys. He has 26 Billboard chart hits like “Vivir Mi Vida” which has more than one billion views on YouTube and “Flor Pálida” with more than 142 million plays on Spotify. The singer also holds the Guinness World Record for best-selling tropical/salsa artist and the most number-one albums on the Billboard Tropical Albums year-end charts, an honor he shares with Romeo Santos and Eddie Santiago.
The Boricua superstar was named after the Mexican balladeer Marco Antonio Muñíz. While a global salsa icon for a long list of Spanish-language hits, he started his recording career singing English, performing a dance music genre known as freestyle. That changed when he switched to salsa in 1993 and put out three commercially successful salsa albums in four years, Otra Nota, Todo a su Tiempo, and Contra la Corriente.
But he also found success in the mainstream American market. Marc Anthony’s eponymous English-language album debut went triple-platinum in the U.S., becoming part of the nation’s so-called “Latin boom” in music during the waning years of the past millennium.
Marc Anthony has received a total of 29 Premio Lo Nuestro awards, the ASCAP Founders Award, 12 Billboard Latin Music Awards and three Billboard Awards.
The singer also turned to acting in the mid-1990s. His film credits include Big Night, Bringing Out the Dead, In the Time of the Butterflies, Man On Fire. He played Puerto Rican salsa legend Héctor Lavoe in the 2007 biopic El Cantante. Additionally, he performed on Broadway, starring opposite Rubén Blades and Ednita Nazario in Paul Simon’s The Capeman in 1998.
In In the Heights, Marc Anthony has a small role. He plays Gapo, the alcoholic father of Sonny, the cousin of central character Usnavi, played by Anthony Ramos. The salsa legend is also part of the soundtrack. He lends his vocals to the song “Home all summer,” written by Lin Manuel Miranda and also featuring vocals by Ramos and Leslie Grace, who plays Nina.
Featured Photo: Marc Anthony in concert in New York last year (Credit: Magnus)
