Salsa Music Ups and Downs: Part 2b – the threat of Rock & Disco
Posted on 18. Aug, 2009 by Hector Aviles in Blog
In this blog, I cover the boom of Rock and Disco experienced starting in the mid-1970s and through the 80s, and how this represented a threat for Salsa. Luckily, Salsa was developing a more “mainstream” branch that allowed it to ride the wave through the 80′s.
As I mentioned in my previous Part 2a blog, Salsa started its boom in the late 60’s and continued into the early 70’s. During this time, salsa was exploding with the strong sound of the many orchestra & singer combinations of the time, and the beefing up of the wind section in most bands. Fania, and its “All Stars” was doing a super marking job. What would later be known as “Salsa Dura” (hard salsa) or “Salsa Clasica” (classic salsa) was in full swing.
Things started to change in the mid-70’s as a couple of significant events took place; Rock and the appearance of Disco began to experience a commercial boom, and at the same time, Salsa began evolving a mainstream sound.
The boom of Rock and Disco:
Saturday Night Fever
In the mid-70’s, rock began a commercial boom, sparked by fusions with soul, R&B, and jazz. I’m not sure what exactly triggered the explosion of rock. It could have been the impact of the last albums of The Beatles, who broke up in the early 70’s and left a fascinating legacy as well as a huge void, which many bands jumped in to try to fill. Or it could have been the evolution of a variant of the genre. But whatever caused the boom, the result was a commercial success by artists like Chicago, Rod Stewart, Bee Gees, Elton John, Rolling Stones, etc. In the late 70’s, Disco was emerging and began invading the dance clubs. The decade finished with a bang for Disco, with the mega-hit movie “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta. The soundtrack of the movie, recorded mostly by the Bee Gees, with Gloria Gaynor adding a extra hit, became a huge commercial success. The “Travoltada”, like Ruben Blades would call it (or “Travolta-mania) was all over the dance clubs. Sales of white suits went to the roof. [Note: I have to make a quick comment on this; Ismael Miranda, “El niño bonito” (the pretty boy) of salsa had already introduced the white suit ahead of Travolta. Ismael Miranda used a white suit for his 1975 album cover “Este es Ismael Miranda”, and “Saturday Night Fever” was released later in 1978].
The booming Disco and progressive Rock music were winning the hearts of young people all over the world, and Latinos were no exception. The younger generation flocked disco clubs, many now preferring these over the salsa salons.
The birth of MTV; adding salt to the wound:
The boom of Rock and Disco got a second big infusion, when MTV (Music Television) was introduced by cable companies in 1981. Michael Jackson was one of the 1st artists to take full advantage of showcasing his music and dancing abilities to go with it, on the new cool TV channel. First with “Off the Wall”, but later with his mega-hit “Thriller” in 1983, Michael Jackson dominated the music world, earning the nickname “King of Pop”. “Thriller” became the biggest selling album of all-time, a title it still holds. If Michael Jackson was the “King”, Madonna became the “Queen”. Madonna used her good looks, sexy songs, and provocative outfits to practically take over MTV airwaves. Her albums “Madonna”, and specially “Like a Virgin” became huge successes, launching a very successful and lucrative career in the MTV era, for which Madonna was a perfect fit.
Music Television
And from there it just kept “raining over wet” as we say in Puerto Rico. MTV showcased and magnified the commercial success of many artists throughout the 1980’s, among them Genesis & Phil Collins, The Police & Sting, Van Halen, Journey, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Lionel Richie, Tina Turner, Billy Joel, Cyndi Lauper, Huey Lewis, and many others. The music was very mainstream, and MTV was the perfect marketing tool for it. Salsa had its work cut out for it, if it wanted a piece of the public’s music money.
Salsa’s timely evolution to “mainstream”:
As Rock and Disco began their booming success in the mid-70s, Salsa was doing its own evolution. Salsa bands began to mature, and using the dynamic nature of the genre, artists began to experiment with ways to take Salsa to the next level. What most listeners found was a mellower, more calmed variant of the music. This movement towards a “mellower” sound is best reflected in the
Roena Lucky 7
Roberto Roena’s Apollo Sound super-hit “Mi Desengaño”, as part of his “Lucky 7” album (1976). Having a smooth arrangement, a very “jazzy” trumpet solo between the intro and the “soneos”, and a “bossa nova” mambo in the middle, “Mi Desengaño” became hugely popular not only with established “salseros”, but more importantly, with people that did not prefer Salsa up until that time. The catchy and somewhat purposeful lyrics complemented the music, and because of it, Roena played in many more Senior Proms in 1976 and 1977, than he would normally have otherwise.
Below, you can play a streaming audio clip of this song and listen to the above notes in the song.
[audio:LWC_Mi_Desengano_clip-v2.mp3]
That same year, La Sonora Ponceña had a similar experience with their hit album “Musical Conquest” (1976). Papo Lucca experimented a bit in this album, trying to improve on their previous release “Tiene Pimienta”, which was a great hit and their best selling album until then. Lucca and La Ponceña stroke gold in “Musical Conquest” with the hits “La Clave” and “El Pio Pio”. Similar to Roena’s “Mi Desengaño”, these songs were mellower, and Papo Lucca introduced a flute to the typical “Sonora” trumpet-only wind section to smooth out the mambos.
Musical Conquest
The mambos had flares of bossa nova, and singer Luigi Texidor was at the peak of his game, making witty and funny “soneos” and comments throughout the songs, helping make this album a huge hit, and attracting a huge crowed of ‘non-salseros”. These “non-salseros” where people that would listen to a little of everything (pop, balada, rock, disco, trova, etc.), but would not classify themselves as “salseros”, and probably never bought a Salsa album before. But with this new style of Salsa, they began acquiring their first Salsa records. La Sonora Ponceña had also moved mainstream.
Many other bands were going mainstream with their salsa. Willie Colón hooked up with a young Panamanian called Rubén Blades to revolutionize the genre beyond mainstream, but I’ll focus on them shortly. El Gran Combo released several “mainstream” hits, starting with “Nido de Amor” in their album “Aqui No Se Sienta Nadie” (1979), and repeating the dose with “El Licor de tu Boquita” in their album “Unity” (1980). The same happened with “El Telefono” and “Goyito Sabater” in their mega-hit “Nuestro Aniversario” (1982). Cheo Feliciano released the albums
Estampas
“Estampas” (1979) and “Sentimiento Tu” (1980), which were very “mainstream” with hits like “Los Entierros”, “Estampa Marina”, and “Juan Albañil” written by Tite Curet Alonso, and “Así Soy” and “Amada Mía”, the first compositions of José Nogueras for Cheo Feliciano. Both were great albums, with a good mix of rhythms, excellent lyrics, great arrangements by the maestros Luis Garcia and Papo Lucca, and impeccable execution by Cheo Feliciano and his star lineup of recording musicians. This albums had great acceptance among the general public, providing Cheo Feliciano great commercial success. Ismael Miranda released “No Voy al Festival” (1977) and “Double Energía” (1980) with Willie Colón, which included the José Nogueras hit “No Me Digan que es Muy Tarde”. Many more artists followed the mainstream trend, helping Salsa stay commercially afloat in a tough time.
During this period Salsa in general was looking for this more mainstream sound, although not everyone, went in this direction. Willie Rosario, who preferred the hard line style of Salsa, had a hit song “Busca El Ritmo” which calls for the public to take preference on their musical roots rather than on imported genres. At one point in the song, singer Tony Vega bursts out “Rockero, fuera, fuera, fuera” (Rocker, out, out, out). Willie Rosario didn’t soften much his musical style, which already was heavily influenced by Latin Jazz, of which he always added a cut or two to his recordings. However , with the addition of singer Gilberto Santa Rosa to his lineup in 1984, he began to soften his message, adding more love-themed songs to his albums, which Santa Rosa delivered with grace, charisma, and ingenuity. This resulted in mega-hits for Willie Rosario, which included “Botaron La Pelota” and “Enamorado a lo Adivino” from the album “Afincando” (1985), and “Me Tendran Que Aceptar” from the album “Nueva Cosecha” (1986).
In Puerto Rico, there were a couple of other artist which is worth mentioning. Raphy Leavitt and his La Selecta orchestra always maintained a high standard of music, with some of it being of mainstream trend. One of my very 1st favorite salsa tunes, was Raphy Leavitt’s “La Cuna Blanca”. La Selecta manage to deliver hits consistently, starting with “Payaso” (1971) and going on with ”Mi Barrio”, ”Jibaro Soy”, and “Herido”. In the mid-70s, while the cross-over movement started to take place, Raphy Leavitt delivered the hits “El Buen Pastor” and ”Te Arrepentiras” as part of the album “De Frente a la Vida” (1976), which had good acceptance by the new mainstream market which had just dicovered Roena, El Gran Combo, and La Sonora Ponceña.
In New York, Luis “Perico” Ortiz and Conjunto Clásico were bands that came out with new musical styles . Perico came out with a salsa orchestra with a heavy dose of Jazz elements in its arrangements, and Clásico came out with a typical conjunto sound and songs which reflected mostly small town living in rural Puerto Rico. These songs were all written by Clásico co-founder, and composer extraordinaire Ramón Rodriguez. However, although both of these bands had great commercial success, it was mainly due to hard-core “salseros”, not by appealing to mainstream listeners. Luis “Perico” Ortiz did record some hits that cross to the mainstream audience, like “De Patitas”. The mainstram public enjoyed the basic rhythms within Salsa, but preferred something softer than “descargas” and heavy trumpet solos. Songs like Tito Puente’s “Para los Rumberos” wasn’t made for them.
Rubén Blades: Salsa had a new message:
A big boom to the mainstream tendency was provided by the guy Willie Colon brought in to replace super-start Hector Lavoe. Rubén Blades, who had recorded in New York previously with Pete Rodriguez’s Orchestra (“From Panama to New York” – 1970) and with Ray Barretto (“Barretto” – 1975), joined Willie Colón to record a different kind of salsa. Blades was able to do with Colón what he couldn’t do with Barretto. Ray Barretto liked the traditional Afro-Cuban sound and jazzy style, and was not eager to experiment with socially-charged themes in the songs. Willie Colón welcomed the experiment, and they ran their 1st experiment by recording the song “El Cazanguero” in the album “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” (1976). The song was about the loneliness prisoners feel by losing their liberty; Ruben had visited a jail in Panama as part of his Law School work. But their big coming-out together came with “Metiendo Mano” (1977) when Willie Colón officially introduced Rubén Blades. Songs like “Pablo Pueblo”, “Pueblo”, and Tite Curet Alonso’s “Plantación Adentro”, which told social stories or messages, were well received by the general public. But it was their next album which would make history.
Colon-Blades Siembra
“Siembra” (1978) became the best selling salsa album of all times. With hits like “Plastico”,“Pedro Navaja”, and the title song “Siembra”, Rubén Blades established himself as a different kind of “salsero”; an intelligent/educated “salsero” with a different message. The fact that he had a law degree from the University of Panama gave him more credibility. It also helped that the only hits the famous Fania All Stars had thereafter (“Juan Pachanga” and “Sin Tu Carino”) would be Rubén Blades hits.
Rubén Blades used our rich rhythm of Salsa as a means to carry a more meaningful message than what it had been conveying before. He wanted to raise the awareness of people to the situations surrounding us. Once we become aware and face the situations which affect us, instead of trying to escape from them with funny but meaningless lyrics, then we can start to move towards a way to solve problems or improve those situations.
But Rubén Blades has a funny side too. He started the whole string of the “telefonito” (phone) songs, buy adding a few funny songs to his album with Willie Colón “Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos” (1981).
Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos
Besides the story of the guy avoiding the call from the girl (“El Telefonito”), he also wrote a funny tune called “Madam Kalalú” about a fortune teller which wants to take all their money. Here, Blades begins to unveil the problems some musicians were having with Fania Records, when at the end of the song Madam Kalalú finally reveals to Colón and Blades…”yo veo un barco que se esta hundiendo; y el capitán es el flaco mulato ese, que no sabe nadarrr…Todo el mundo en ese barco esta corriendo pa’ to’s la’os…” (I see a sinking ship, and the captain is that skinny “mulato” who doesn’t know how to swim….everyone in that boat is running away…), in obvious reference to what was happening in Fania Records (the boat). Check the audio clip of the recording below:
[audio:Madam_Kalalu_ending.mp3]
The album also had a more serious song “Tiburón” (Shark) which alluded to the intervention of the United States in Latin America, and how it should stay away (“si lo ven que viene, palo al tiburon” — “if you see it coming, hit the shark hard”). The song was seen as “leftist’ by the Miami cuban crowd, and story has it that Blades and Colon had to be escorted out of a concert in Miami with police protection when they insisted on playing the song, and the crowd got rowdy on them.
With his way to raise awareness to a social situation (“Siembra”), or to tell the story we see in our neighborhoods (“Ligia Elena”), or to tell a love story (“Sin Tu Cariño”), Rubén Blades changed the way Salsa had been used until then. He made it a vehicle to transmit any message we want to transmit, be it a meaningful or meaningless one. Rubén Blades chose a meaningful purpose most of the time.
“Hay gente que canta por cantar, yo canto pa’ decir la verdad; apuntala” (There are people that sing just to sing, I sing to tell the truth; take note) – Rubén Blades (in “La Canción de Todos” in the album “Entre Amigos”, produced by Tony Pabón, with the musical direction of Luis “Perico” Ortiz).
The Fania Decline:
As Rubén Blades was predicting (through Madam Kalalú), Fania was in the decline. I have never read or heard a full story of what caused the Fania decline, but from the bits and pieces I’ve read and heard, it seems that greed had a lot to do with it.
Apparently the owners of Fania were making all the money, and the artists were ending with the small end of the stick. There were endless backend of unpaid royalties, and Rubén Blades was one of the first to stand up to this, head on. He wanted for musicians, composers, arrangers, etc., to get their due part of the share. Fania was not sensible to this request, and many artists feared angering Masucci and the Fania management by speaking up. Not Blades.
However, artists began “jumping ship”. Bobby Valentín was one of the first to leave Fania Records. He must have left in good terms, as he remained as part of the Fania All Stars after having left the label to start his own, Bronco Records. Soon, many other artist follow suit, going to Sony Music, or other recording labels. The exodus of artists, and the failed attempts to crossover the Fania All Stars, trying to ride the booming success of Rock & Disco, and some of the artists remaining in the label, resulted in a series of commercial flops. As previously described, the public taste was now shifting to the booming rock and disco, and later in the 1990’s it would be “merengue” that would take away Salsa’s income stream.
Conclusion:
Fania didn’t have new incoming artist to influx new blood and energy to record sales, and the aging fans were raising kids and no longer going to clubs. The old salsa stars were leaving the label or retiring. Salsa was in bad shape, but it would survive, thanks to the mainstream salsa that would maintain the groups working and selling records. Fania, on the other hand, had lost everything that made the label great in the 70s. No start lineup, no successful Fania All Stars, and competition from other big labels offering Fania angry stars better contract terms. Fania was seriously ill by the end of the 80’s, and would not survive the “merengue” boom of the 90’s. Ralph Mercado founded RMM Records in 1987 to fill in part of the gap that Fania Records was leaving. The roots of Salsa were deep, and survived the 80s with its mainstream salsa, highlighted by Rubén Blades and his new salsa message. But another force was also emerging during the mid-80’s which would also help Salsa run the wave of the 80s into the 90’s. The mid-80s saw the beginning of the “Salsa Romántica” movement, which gave Salsa an extra push to get through the 80s.
Salsa, having its roots in a mix of rhythms, always has the flexibility to accommodate different messages and styles. This has served it well to continue to attract fans all over the world and survive its toughest challenges.
My Favorites:
There was a lot of good “mainstream” Salsa produced during this period. If you like salsa, as I suppose you do if you’ve been reading this article, there is a lot of good music to be found in the recordings of this period. I mentioned a few abums above, but here is my summary of favorites:
Robarto Roena: “Lucky 7”, “La 8va Maravilla”, “El Progreso”
Sonora Ponceña: “Musical Conquest”, “El Gigante del Sur”
Willie Colon & Ruben Blades: “Metiendo Mano”, “Siembra”, “Canciones del Solar de los Aburridos”
El Gran Combo: “Aqui no se Sienta Nadie”, “Unity”, “Nuestro Aniversario”, “Breaking the Ice”, “Innovations”
Willie Rosario: “Afincando”
Bobby Valentin: “El Gato”, “Siempre en Forma”, “Presenta al Cano Estremera”
Cheo Feliciano: “Estampas”, “Sentimiento Tu “
Frankie Ruiz: “Solista Pero No Solo”
Raphy Leavitt y Orquesta La Selecta: “30 Aniversario Live”
I’m sure there are more, but these will give you a good return for your musical budget dollars.
Next:
Salsa Ups and Downs: the threat of “Merengue” and the role of “Salsa Romántica”.
Related Blogs at LatinoWebCafe.com:
Salsa Music Ups and Downs – Series Intro
Salsa Music Ups and Downs – Part 2a: The threat of Rock and Disco
Salsa Music Upsa adn Downs – Fania All Stars sidebar
Related posts:
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[...] Salsa Music Ups and Downs, Part 2-b: the threat of Rock & Disco [...]