Abraham Quintanilla Jr., father of slain singer Selena Quintanilla Perez, has died at 86.
Quintanilla Jr.’s death was announced Saturday on Instagram by his son, Abraham “A.B.” Quintanilla III.
“It’s with a heavy heart to let you guys know that my Dad passed away today,” the younger Quintanilla wrote in his caption next to a photo of his father.
The cause of death was not revealed.
Quintanilla Jr. rose to prominence as a music producer and a driving force behind his daughter’s global success. Before Selena’s 1995 murder, Quintanilla helped usher in an unprecedented era of popularity for Tejano (“Tex-Mex”) music — and following her death he devoted himself to promoting and protecting Selena’s legacy.
“Death is a very painful thing for a family, and Selena died at such a young age, she didn’t get to live her full life,” Quintanilla Jr. told NBC Latino in 2014. “She was our baby, our youngest one.”
Quintanilla Jr. was born in 1939, in Corpus Christi, Texas. A second generation Mexican American, he dropped out of high school to join a band called Los Dinos (“the guys”). During a stint in the Army, in 1963, he married Marcella Samora.
Quintanilla Jr. later performed and recorded on local labels with Los Dinos until the late 1960s, when he took a job at Dow Chemical in Lake Jackson, Texas. There he and his wife raised their three children Abraham Quintanilla III (“A.B.,” born 1963), Suzette (b. 1967) and Selena (b. 1971). Quintanilla had his children learning music from a young age, so that they could perform together, with Selena as vocalist. Quintanilla Jr. spent hours coaching young Selena so that she could sing in Spanish.
By the late 1980s, with Selena’s star ascendant, the group played to increasingly larger crowds.
Selena’s 1994 album “Amor Prohibido” went multiplatinum. Then, on the cusp of mainstream fame, Selena, 23, was shot and killed in 1995 by the former president of her fan club.
Following his daughter’s death, Quintanilla Jr. turned to managing Selena’s legacy. “Because he (Quintanilla Jr. ) controlled Selena’s estate, he has shaped the way her story has been told,” said Deborah Paredez, professor at Columbia University. “The story of Selena that we know is in some ways Abraham’s crafting of her image.”
Quintanilla Jr. was an executive producer on the 1997 film “Selena,” in which he was portrayed by Edward James Olmos. In 2020, in “Selena: The Series” on Netflix, he was played by Ricardo Chavira.
In his later years, Quintanilla Jr. was active running Q-Productions, a Latin music company, and overseeing the Selena Foundation, which helps underprivileged children.
