Esteban

(Stephen Paul, 1948-    )  Guitarist.

Lives in Phoenix area

Esteban performed during a break between flights at the Luke AFB Air Show.  3-02.

Esteban grew up as Stephen, one of four children of a Pittsburgh steelworker.  He majored in music and English at Carnegie Mellon University, and went on to study under guitar maestro Andres Segovia in Spain.  Unable to pronounce "Stephen," Segovia called him the Spanish equivalent which eventually became his stage name.

Esteban's road to popular CD performing artist was more than a little rocky.  A car crash in 1980 left him nearly blind in one eye and with such extensive nerve damage to his hands that he was unable to perform for nearly a decade.

Finally able to perform, Esteban took a job playing mellow guitar in the Lobby Bar at Scottsdale's Hyatt Regency.  There he performed for 11 years.  Things changed when Joy Mangano heard him perform at the Hyatt in Atlanta.  She was convinced that she could sell his music not through a record company, but through the television merchandising.

Mangano convinced QVC, the television network purveyor of jewelry, mops and gadgets, to feature Esteban's CD.  Through TV concerts on the shopping channel, QVC began selling Esteban albums--and lots of them.  After 6 concerts over 50,000 albums had been sold.

That was just the beginning.  In 1995 Barry Diller, who had been the CEO and a major shareholder at QVC for the three previous years, sold his stake in the company and resigned.  He went on to acquire the Home Shopping Network.  HSN made Esteban "today's special" on June 29, 2000, giving special attention to his albums, with four hour long concerts within 24 hours.  By the end of the week, Esteban sales reached number 53 on the Billboard 200, leaving artists like Enrique Iglesias, Celine Dion and Limp Bizkit in the dust.

Esteban was able to leave his Hyatt gig in June 2000.