It's a compression in the cord, in the sense of the neck … my spinal cord, and I was very, very ill for three years." Doctors thought the young man would never walk again. I lost control of the car and rolled it, resulting in what they call paraparexia, which is not a paraplegic. If not for a car accident, on 22nd September 1963, he may have never had a music career: "I had a car accident, very, very strange car accident," remembers Iglesias. Thus far, he has performed approximately 5,000 concerts and recorded albums in fourteen different languages. While Iglesias rose to international prominence in the 1970s and 1980s as a performer of romantic ballads and as an iconically suave Latin gentleman, his success has continued as he crossed musical and linguistic barriers. Julio José Iglesias de la Cueva (born Septemin Madrid) is the best-selling Spanish singer of all time, having sold over 250 million records in different languages and released 77 records. In addition to his own hit recordings, many of his songs have been recorded successfully by recording artists around the Spanish-speaking world, most notably by Pedro Infante, Rocío Durcal, Javier Solís, Pedro Fernández, Jorge Negrete, Vikki Carr, Luis Miguel, Lola Beltrán, Lucha Villa, Vicente Fernández and by spaniards Joaquín Sabina and Manolo García.
Among the most famous are Ella, Media Vuelta, El Rey, El Jinete, Si Nos Dejan, Amanecí Entre Tus Brazos, Cuando el Destino, El Caballo Blanco, Llegó Borracho el Borracho and Que Te Vaya Bonito, as well as Camino de Guanajuato, where he sang about his home state of Guanajuato as well as his home town of Dolores Hidalgo Guanajuato. Nonetheless he composed more than 1000 songs. He had no musical training-according to the singer Miguel Aceves Mejía, Jiménez didn't play an instrument and didn't even know the Spanish terms for "waltz" and "key". His songs are considered part of the Mexican musical heritage and comparable, for instance, to what Woody Guthrie meant to American folk music. José Alfredo Jiménez (born Januin Dolores Hidalgo, Guanajuato, died Novemin Mexico City, Mexico) was a Mexican singer-songwriter in the ranchera style.