Julio’s Second Time Around

The United States is home to roughly 80 million baby boomers, or people born between 1946 and 1964, and most of them--and their icons--still refuse to grow up. The Rolling Stones. Cher. President “did not inhale but love cigars” Clinton. Academics and demographers say boomers are the most selfish and youth-obsessed generation ever, and marketing pros predict boomers will continue to live by the slogan “don’t trust anybody over 30” well into their 60s.

That this generation refuses to grow old, or even middle-aged, is well-documented. The American Assn. of Retired Persons changed its perks to lure them in, having discovered that stuff like golf makes boomers think of their parents. (Total squares, man.) Better boomer bait? Rock climbing and AOL memberships.

The same sort of thing is true of boomers’ pop stars as well. Put simply, they refuse to disappear. Tina Turner makes more per show right now than Britney Spears.

Perhaps more important, though, is the recent tendency of record labels to release new albums by boomer icons, featuring a host of young guest stars. Call it a reverse mentorship in relevance.

Frank Sinatra, while not a boomer, cast the mold many boomer stars now pour themselves into, when Capitol Records released his “Duets” album in 1993, featuring U2’s Bono, Gloria Estefan and Kenny G.

Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Cher and Santana have all released records in the past few years that leaned on duets with younger artists, or material identified with them, in some cases as part of a campaign to revive limp careers.

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And now to the list is added Julio Iglesias, whose new Columbia Records album, “Noche de Cuatro Lunas,” features a duet with Mexican pop star Alejandro Fernandez, a version of a recent hit by Spain’s Alejandro Sanz, and hip, quirky productions by Robi Rosa, of Ricky Martin fame.

The formula seems to be working for Iglesias, who says he’s pleased to have his fame back. The album is No. 1 in his native Spain, No. 3 on the U.S. Latin album chart and in the Top 10 in several other nations, including Portugal. Last week, the album even jumped from No. 95 to No. 15 in England.

“This album, it’s wonderful,” Iglesias says, “because it takes a year off my age to make an album like this. I am 46, so now this album makes me 45.”

Iglesias, known for his charming jokes, must have been joking, as he is 56.

Anyway, you remember Julio, yes? He was a crooner, when crooning was cool. He’s sold about 250 million copies worldwide of his 77 albums, according to his manager, and is the most debonair, toothy and suntanned Spaniard star on Earth.

In his heyday (the 1970s), Iglesias traveled, says a former road manager, in a private jet stocked with five different kinds of women. A blond, a brunet, a redhead, a black woman, an Asian woman. He does not deny it.

That Julio Iglesias.

To say “Noche de Cuatro Lunas” was an act of pure art is a stretch, even for those involved with the project. Rather, it was the idea of a young Sony Music executive named Tomas Munoz.

When Iglesias was told--yes, told--he would be recording with young stars, he says he was slightly nervous, though intrigued.

“The first thing I thought was maybe these kids don’t want to work with me,” Iglesias says.

As it turns out, Iglesias was right--at least in the case of producer Rosa.

“I wasn’t into [the idea] at first,” Rosa says. “Of course not. But Tomas being who he is, and what he’d done for me in the past, I said, OK, I’ll go meet Julio. I turned Tomas down at first, but he said at the very least go meet the guy, so I went to Vegas and met him.”

Vegas?

“Vegas. I met him at the Caesar, in a hotel room that looked like something out of a bad cocaine movie. And after meeting him, he was so totally out there, man. What an eccentric cat. We sat down to dinner and there was so much energy just radiating out of him, that’s when I fell in love with Julio. I told Tomas, ‘I’ll do it. But I’m gonna take him from Don Juan to Don Quixote.’ ”

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To hear it from those involved in the project, pulling Don Julio into the 21st century was no easy feat. Iglesias and his collaborators routinely differed on approach and feel, with the producers winning out in the end--a first in Iglesias’ four-decade career.

“I had less control than ever in my life,” he says, adding with a laugh, “That’s why the album is better.

“They said to me, ‘I think, Julio, it would be better if you don’t come to the studio as often.’ Normally I’m in the studio from the first note until the end. Normally I stay in the studio. But this was the first time I was really more in the end.”

This is not a joke. Iglesias spent only a total of 15 to 20 hours in the studio, he says, where once he was “a 100-take singer.”

“We just had to make him stop,” Rosa says. “He’d want to keep going, and going. . . . He’s a complicated man. I’ll just leave it at that.”

Asked if it was difficult to give up so much control of the album, Iglesias used one of two gynecological analogies employed in the span of a 30-minute interview.

“It’s like when you’re at the gynecologist,” he said, “and you’re on the table, and you’re having a baby. You know your doctor is educated at Harvard, or wherever, and you know you shouldn’t interfere, but there’s always that part of you that’s scared they’ll drop your baby.”

(Iglesias’ wife recently gave birth to a baby girl. He says he doesn’t know exactly how many children he has in all. “I’ve had more or less children,” he says in Spanish. “But more than less.” His most famous child is pop star Enrique Iglesias.)

Julio Iglesias never stopped making music, so to say this new release is a comeback is not wholly accurate. In fact, he released an album last year, “20th Anniversary Celebration,” but it sold only 6,600 copies in the U.S., according to SoundScan. The new release has sold 24,000 in its its first month out.

While Iglesias almost felt like a guest on his own album this time, he admits the sacrifices accomplished a goal that, to him, is more important than creating personally meaningful art: rekindled fame.

“I feel that people are very nice with me,” Iglesias explains. “I feel grateful, a little. . . . I’m excited and feel that still I have another opportunity in records, which is very important. I feel younger. When you have something, and you’re insecure about it, and somebody tells you it’s OK, you feel good. You feel younger.”