History

What Fania Records changed

A bandleader and a lawyer started a record label in New York in 1964. Within ten years its house band was filling stadiums, and the music had a name the whole world used. That name was partly a sales pitch.

By Carlos Morales Jr.Last reviewed: September 24, 2026

A bandleader and a lawyer

Johnny Pacheco and Jerry Masucci founded Fania in New York in 1964 [fania.com; NPS 2023; NPR 2008]. (NPR’s 2021 obituary of Pacheco gives 1963 [NPR 2021]; every other source we read says 1964.) Latino USA describes Masucci as a Brooklyn lawyer and former police officer [Latino USA 2014].

The start-up stories are good ones: a budget of about $5,000, records sold from the trunk of a car, and a name taken from a Cuban song, “Fanía Funché” by Reinaldo Bolaños. Carnegie Hall repeats all three [Carnegie Hall]; we haven’t seen a primary source for them, so treat them as the label’s lore.

The label grew by buying. Fania founded Vaya in 1970; in 1971 Vaya bought Cotique and Fania bought Inca; and in 1975 Fania bought Roulette’s Latin masters, including the Tico and Alegre catalogs [fania.com].

The All-Stars and the Cheetah

In 1968 Pacheco and Masucci assembled the Fania All-Stars, the label’s supergroup. They were recorded live that year at the Red Garter in Greenwich Village [fania.com; NPR 2008; label release].

On August 26, 1971, a Thursday, the All-Stars played the Cheetah club on West 52nd Street [fania.com; Craft; Carnegie Hall]. Leon Gast’s film Our Latin Thing (Nuestra Cosa), released in 1972, captured that night and the barrio around it [LOC: Muriel; Carnegie Hall]. You’ll often read that salsa was born that night. Carnegie Hall calls that a myth, while granting that the concert launched salsa worldwide [Carnegie Hall].

Stadiums: New York, San Juan, Kinshasa

In late August 1973, usually dated Friday, August 24, about 40,000 fans filled Yankee Stadium [LOC: Muriel; Craft 2024; ESPN]. The show ended early when fans rushed the field during a conga duel between Ray Barretto and Mongo Santamaría [LOC: Muriel; ESPN]. (The Library of Congress essay and Fania’s history page give August 23. The essay also calls the night a Friday, and in 1973 Friday was the 24th, which is the date Craft Recordings and ESPN give. We haven’t found a 1973 newspaper to settle it.)

The album Live at Yankee Stadium (1975) was mostly recorded somewhere else: four of the five songs on Vol. 1 come from a November 1973 concert in San Juan that opened the Roberto Clemente Coliseum, and that San Juan show was Celia Cruz’s formal debut with the All-Stars. The Library of Congress added the album to the National Recording Registry in 2003 [LOC: Muriel].

In September 1974 the All-Stars and Celia Cruz played for more than 80,000 people in Kinshasa, Zaire, at a three-day music festival tied to the Muhammad Ali–George Foreman fight [Outes-León 2017]. The recording, Live in Africa, came out only in 1986 [Outes-León 2017].

Fania kept selling. Its 1976 film Salsa! recast the music as African-rooted for non-Latino U.S. audiences; that year CBS bought Fania’s distribution and international rights, and the crossover albums of 1976 to 1979 mostly failed [Outes-León 2017].

The money question

Many Fania musicians have said the label’s contracts shortchanged them, and some sued. A lawyer for Masucci’s estate told NPR in 2006 that all contracts were honored, and that some suits were settled out of court [NPR 2006]. Pacheco himself told NPR that Masucci had tricked him out of his rights to the company, without giving details [NPR 2006]. Fights over the copyrights, licenses, royalties and contracts of Fania-era songs have run through courts and the press for decades [LOC: Ospina Romero], and Carnegie Hall counts those questions among the things that brought the label down [Carnegie Hall].

We’re not going to settle that argument here, and we don’t repeat claims we couldn’t check.

Who owns it now

After Masucci died in 1997, the catalog sat in probate for eight years [NPR 2006]. Emusica, of Miami, bought it in 2005, more than 1,300 albums [NPR 2006; NPR 2018]; it passed to Código in 2009 [Latino USA 2014]; and in July 2018 Concord bought Fania’s records and publishing, about 19,000 masters and 8,000 compositions [Music Business Worldwide; NPR 2018]. Its reissues now come out on Craft Recordings, a Concord company [fania.com].

Johnny Pacheco died in February 2021, at 85 [NPR 2021]. Willie Colón, the Fania-era trombonist and bandleader, died on February 21, 2026, at 75 [NPR 2026].

Recordings to start with

Every claim about SalsaCoach’s band comes from its own measurement; everything else cites a source. If you spot a mistake, email support@mysalsacoach.com.