Willie Colón & Rubén Blades – Siembra 1978 Fania Records (original) 2021 Craft Recordings / Concord (reissue) If you are only going to have one salsa album in your collection, you could do much worse than a copy of Siembra. For fans of the music, I’ve heard many stories about the opening track, Plástico,…
The Alegre All Stars – s/t Vinyl transfer in 24-bit/192 kHz | FLAC | 300 dpi scans | Latin, Descarga, Salsa 1961 Alegre Records LPA-810 || Repress, 1960s/70s || Mono This is the first of several albums made by The Alegre All Stars and the only one with Johnny Pacheco on flute, who left the…
Celia Cruz y Willie Colón – Celia y Willie Vinyl rip in 24-bit/192 kHz | FLAC & mp3| 300 dpi scans | Latin, Salsa 2021 Craft Recordings CR00375 || RSD, limited to 2000 copies || Original release 1981 Vaya The cover may seem to invoke the glory days of the Palladium (or perhaps even…
Mambos, cha chas, son montunos, pachangas, Latin jazz… Tito Puente played all of those, and he apparently never liked the catch-all term “salsa” (and he stayed out of Fania Records’ orbit, for the most part). And he has a point – each of the sub-genres and rhythms (and there are many more than those listed…
Joe Cuba Sextet – Wanted Dead or Alive (Bang! Bang! Push, Push, Push) 1975 Fania/Tico Repress SLP-1146, Mono mix ||| 1966 (Original release) You can’t really talk about the Latin boogaloo without mentioning the song “Bang! Bang!”. The Joe Cuba Sextet had been around the flourishing New York scene for a while by this time,…
Ray Barretto – Barretto Power (1970) Original release, Fania Records This reissue, 2020 Craft Recordings CR003300 Have I mentioned how fantastic it is that the Fania catalog is finally being curated with the respect and attention to quality and detail that the music deserves? After decades of crap CD remasterings, brick-walled for iTunes, Concord records…
