- Guitarist and singer who, as a result of congenital glaucoma, has been blind since birth.
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- His wife Susan set up a Jose Feliciano fan club when she was 14. At 17 she met her idol and eventually married him.
- Father, with wife Susan Feliciano, of three children: daughter Melissa, and sons Jonathan Feliciano and Michael Feliciano.
- Had a hit remake with the song "Light My Fire". His version charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, two spots lower than the original version recorded by The Doors.
- On 7 October 1968 he performed the national anthem in Detroit at the World Series Game 5, Detroit Tigers Vs. St. Louis Cardinals. He was booed for his Latin-jazz-influenced version of the anthem which caused a major disruption of his career.
- Feliciano's knack for music became apparent when at 7, he taught himself to play the accordion. About two years later, when he was 9 years old, his father gave him his first guitar. He would play his guitar by himself in his room for up to 14 hours a day, and would learn by listening to 1950s rock and roll, records of classical guitarists and jazz players. Andrés Segovia and Wes Montgomery were among his favorites.
- At age 25, he wrote "Feliz Navidad." He recorded the song while feeling homesick at Christmas, missing his family in New York City and his extended family further afield as he sat in a studio in Los Angeles. He remembered celebrating Christmas Eve with his brothers, eating traditional Puerto Rican foods, drinking rum, and going caroling.
- His first professional contracted performance was at The Retort, a coffee house in Detroit, Michigan.
- In the United States, Feliciano became popular in the 1960s, particularly after his 1968 album Feliciano! reached number two on the music charts. Thus far, he has released over fifty albums, worldwide, in both English and Spanish.
- In a 1969 interview, Feliciano mentioned soul music in general, and Ray Charles and Sam Cooke in particular, as influences on his singing.
- Has ten brothers.
- As a teenager, Feliciano took classical guitar lessons with Harold Morris, a staff music teacher at The Light House School for the Blind in New York City. Morris, himself, had once been a student of Segovia.
- When Feliciano was five, his family moved to Spanish Harlem, New York City, where he made his first public appearance at the Teatro Puerto Rico in The Bron.
- His music fuses styles - Latin, jazz, blues, soul and rock-created primarily with his signature acoustic guitar sound.
- At 17, in order to help support his family, Feliciano left high school. He started frequenting the coffee houses of Greenwich Village, "passing the hat" as his "salary" in those clubs where he was invited to play.
- He was first exposed to music at the age of 3, playing on a cracker tin can while accompanying his uncle who played the cuatro.
- In 1962 he began his music career performing at the Cafe Id in Greenwich Village.
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