Willie Colón & Rubén Blades

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Willie Colón & Rubén Blades · Willie Colón was born in the South Bronx in New York in 1950, the son of Puerto Rican parents. He began on trumpet, switched to trombone and at fifteen signed with Fania Records. At seventeen he made his first album, which sold more than three hundred thousand copies. The Fania producer Johnny Pacheco recommended the singer Héctor Lavoe to him. Colón was a trombonist, but also a singer, composer, producer and actor, and he was regarded as a pioneer of New York salsa. He died in 2026.

Music and breakthrough

Colón combined jazz, rock and salsa with rhythms from Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Brazil. In his lyrics he described the lives of Puerto Ricans on the American mainland, and on his record sleeves he adopted the look of a gangster, even before that became usual. He collaborated with Ismael Miranda, Celia Cruz and the singer-songwriter Rubén Blades. Their album Siembra from 1978 contains Pedro Navaja, a song by Blades about a street criminal in the city.

Influence

Salsa from New York was urban music with strong brass, hard-hitting percussion and lyrics about everyday life in the barrio. Colón and Blades show that this music could be more than dance music: it also told stories about the street.

Listening

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  Pedro Navaja · Willie Colón & Rubén Blades, 1978
  Apple Music ↗