To His Fans, Sanchez Was Family

Fans knew everything about Adan Sanchez.

They knew he had become the “man of the house” after his father’s death. They knew he was not a great student. And most of all, they knew that the Mexican American singer still lived with his family in the Paramount neighborhood where he grew up.

The massive outpouring Thursday night at the memorial for Sanchez, where an estimated 15,000 fans poured into the streets outside a Norwalk church, caught many outside the Latino community by surprise.

But Sanchez’s star had risen high before the 19-year-old was killed last weekend in a car crash in Sinaloa, Mexico.

“There is no doubt in my mind that he was on the verge of becoming a phenomenon,” President and CEO Jose Behar of Univision Music Group, Sanchez’s record company, said Friday. “And I believe that the outcry that you’re seeing is a sign that it had started to happen.”

In the aftermath of the tumultuous memorial, fans lingered and small groups of stragglers gathered for an impromptu farewell of their own, a sign of their devotion to their departed hero.

“There are some stars who come off as nice people on stage, but then they see you on the streets -- they don’t give you the time of day,” Hector Serrano, 22, said after the memorial as Sanchez’s music blared from a sport utility vehicle. “But, whenever he spoke, he spoke from the heart. His way of singing, his way of being, was as humble as it could be. So I didn’t see him as an artist. I saw him more for how he was with us -- a friend.”

Sanchez was the latest star to emerge from the growing U.S. Latino music scene -- and the latest to die young. He inherited the legacy of his father, Chalino Sanchez, murdered in 1992 after a concert in Sinaloa, Mexico, his native state.

From almost the moment his father was killed, young Sanchez, nicknamed El Compita (Little Buddy), doggedly pursued the goal of becoming a star himself. He made no bones about it. He wanted to be big.

Some observers were surprised that Sanchez had accomplished just that with talents that could best be described as modest. He sometimes sang off-key, like his gunslinging father, who was known for gritty narco-corrdios, or ballads, about drug runners, smugglers and assassins. But unlike his father, young Sanchez made a series of albums that stuck to conventional romantic themes.

The secret of his success lay, not in his recordings, but in his personality. Time after time, adoring fans, who watched him grow from a grade-school amateur singer to someone who headlined the Kodak Theatre last month, cited his smile, his friendliness, his unspoiled, down-to-earth attitude.

He was one of them, the sons and daughters of truck drivers, house cleaners, assembly workers and storekeepers.

“He would hug his fans, and kiss them, and talk to them,” said Lizeth Hernandez, 15, a sophomore at Compton High School who skipped classes Friday with a friend to visit several shrines to Sanchez, including one outside Paramount High School, the singer’s alma mater. “He wasn’t conceited at all.”

Sanchez’s untimely death naturally inspires comparisons with the late Selena, the 23-year-old Mexican American singer shot to death in 1995, just as her career was in ascendance. Selena, however, was from Texas, the stronghold of her popularity.

Adan Sanchez was a local boy all the way. Stardom had not taken his fans’ hero from them.

“That was the original home that his father bought,” said Marco Antonio Gonzales, a spokesman for Univision. “He had a Jaguar, a Lincoln, a new Corvette. He could have lived anywhere he wanted. That’s why people loved him so much -- because he was one of them, and he never pretended to be anything more.”

At the time of his death, Sanchez was working on a new album, his second for Univision and the ninth of his career. The instrumental tracks had been completed, but not the vocals.

. The scope of his growing popularity was evident during the Kodak concert. His first major headline performance thrilled a sold-out audience.

“We knew it was the right time for the emergence of another youth idol in Mexican regional music,” said Pepe Garza, program director of radio station KBUE-FM, which championed the music of Sanchez and his father.

“It had been a while since we had seen a strong star in this field. You know, I grew up with ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and others had the Beatles, but a lot of these youngsters needed something of their own and they latched on to him.”

Abel de Luna, a veteran producer and label executive, said he first met Sanchez when the budding singer, just 15 at the time, visited his L.A. recording studio during a session for another band. One night, he was doing his homework. Another, he was writing a song.

Sanchez always displayed a discipline and responsibility uncharacteristic of his age, said De Luna, who released six albums by the artist on his own label. He was punctual, hard-working, well-spoken and respectful.

There was nothing complicated about the musical concept created for him -- a mix of traditional norteno and banda music. But De Luna said he started grooming the aspiring star in ways that would prove more important than artistic choices.

“A lot of stars tend to pay attention only to the pretty girls,” the executive said. “But we told him, ‘No, Adan, you have to say hello to everybody, and especially the girls who are not so pretty. They are the ones who will love you forever if you treat them well.”

On April 15, the day after what would have been the singer’s 20th birthday, De Luna’s label plans to issue an album of previously unreleased material by Sanchez, including a tune titled “Nadie es eterno” (Nobody is eternal).

Although Univision has at least three finished songs in its vaults, Behar said there were no immediate plans for a posthumous Sanchez CD.

“I’ve been through this experience before,” said Behar, who signed Selena to EMI Latin. “The one thing we are not going to do is exploit his death. Anything we do will be with the blessing of his mother and his manager.”

A Friday funeral Mass for Sanchez at the Norwalk church was canceled for safety reasons. Still, devoted fans scrambled to locations where they thought his body would be -- one last chance to see him.

Annacandy Macias, 14, had her family drive her all night from Sacramento so she could attend the wake Thursday, where she waited in vain for seven hours. She even went to the singer’s house.

She has been in America since she was 3, “but I don’t listen to any of the music here -- only Mexican music,” she said. “The life Adan sang about -- it was the truth.”