Jose Feliciano Net Worth

What is Jose Feliciano's net worth?

Jose Feliciano is an award-winning composer and guitarist who has a net worth of $8 million. Jose Feliciano has enjoyed a multi-decade musical career that began in the 1960s. To this day, Jose's version of "Feliz Navidad" is one of the best-selling and most-played Christmas songs of all time. Hailing from Puerto Rico, Feliciano started out performing in pubs and clubs across the US and Canada. After releasing his first single, he gained prominence in the US with his first two folk-pop soul albums. Feliciano went on to work with notable artists like Quincy Jones, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, Bing Crosby, and Diana Ross. In the seventies, Feliciano composed and guest starred in numerous TV sitcoms, including Chico and the Man and Kung Fu. He also appeared on artists' albums, including Bill Withers, John Lennon, and Joni Mitchell. Throughout the eighties, Feliciano continued to churn out Latin hits, earning him a string of Grammy awards and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Early Life

Jose Feliciano was born on September 10, 1945, in Lares, Puerto Rico. He is the fourth child of eleven total sons and was born blind as a result of congenital glaucoma. At the age of five, his family moved to Spanish Harlem in New York City. His knack for music became apparent at age 7 when he taught himself to play the accordion. He then learned to play the guitar two years later after his father gifted him one. He would spend up to 14 hours per day practicing the guitar and later began taking classical guitar lessons from Harold Morris, a staff music teacher at The Light House School for the Blind in New York City. He also began singing and listened to singers like Ray Charles and Sam Cooke for inspiration. At the age of 17, he left high school to help support the family and began playing music in coffee houses around the city.

Early Career

Feliciano was offered his first professional contract of any kind by The Retort, a coffee house in Detroit, Michigan. He played there for a while but ultimately returned to New York, where he continued building his career in various pubs, clubs, and coffee houses. He was eventually discovered and signed by Jack Somer, an executive at RCA Victor. In 1964, he released his first single called "Everybody Do the Click," which became a hit in the Philippines. In 1965 and 1966, he released his first two albums – "The Voice and Guitar of José Feliciano" and "A Bag Full of Soul."

In 1966, he performed at a festival in Mar del Plata, Argentina. There, he impressed the RCA Victor executives, who wanted him to stay in Argentina in order to record an album in Spanish. What resulted was an album that featured two smash hit singles – "Poquita Fe" and "Usted." From that point onward, Feliciano continued producing very successful singles, albums, and gold records throughout Latin America, as well as within the Hispanic communities in the United States.

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Success

In 1968, he recorded the hit album "Feliciano!" with the RCA Victor producer Rick Jarrard. The album included a cover of the Doors's song "Light My Fire." The song became a hit, as did the track that was on the record's B-side, "California Dreamin." A DJ in Seattle had liked the song and began playing it on air. The single took off and reached the third spot on U.S. pop charts and sold over a million copies. It also became a number-one hit in countries like Brazil, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Due to his extremely successful year, Feliciano won the 1968 Grammy Award for Best New Artist of the Year as well as the award for Best Pop Male Performance.

The following year, he recorded two more albums with Rick Jarrard, both of which were certified gold. He also worked with Quincy Jones on the "Mackenna's Gold" movie soundtrack. He recorded the theme song for the film called "Old Turkey Buzzard." He also began appearing on a number of U.S. television shows where he performed duets with singers like Bing Crosby, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams, and Diana Ross.

Feliciano has released over fifty albums worldwide in both the Spanish and English languages. His music explores many different styles like Latin, jazz, soul, rock, and blues and always features his signature acoustic guitar style and sound. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1987. In 2000, he was inducted into the International Latin Music Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. Two years later, he was inducted into the Latin Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2018, he celebrated the 50^th anniversary of the release of "Feliciano!" and did so by returning to his homeland of Puerto Rico, where they held an event in his honor.

Feliz Navidad

In 1970, Feliciano released an album of Christmas music. The album featured a track titled "Feliz Navidad," which was written by Feliciano personally, as he wanted to contribute a new original song to the album in addition to the recordings of classic holiday tunes. It took him just a few minutes to write and compose the entire track. The song soon became a massive hit and has since been recorded by hundreds of other artists all over the world. It remains one of the most played and downloaded songs during the holiday season, even today, and has been featured in countless movies and television shows. It was recognized as one of the 25 all-time most-played Christmas songs in the world and is also in the Grammy Hall of Fame. Due to its perennial popularity, Jose likely earns hundreds of thousands of dollars in royalties from "Feliz Navidad" every year. For comparison, Mariah Carey earns an estimated $600,000 – $1.2 million per year in royalties from "All I Want For Christmas."

Personal Life

Jose Feliciano has been married twice. His first marriage to Janne Perez ended in 1978. He married his second wife, Susan Omillian, in 1982. The two had met years earlier while Feliciano was still married to Perez. Omillian was an art student in Detroit at the time of their original meeting. They began dating while Feliciano was still married and dated for a total of 11 years before their marriage. Together, they have two sons and one daughter.