Artists
Héctor Lavoe: what a dancer can listen for
He sang lead on ten albums with Willie Colón between 1967 and 1973, then made the solo records that gave him his nickname. For a dancer, his songs are also a good place to practice hearing the parts of a salsa band.
Héctor Lavoe (1946–1993) was the lead singer of Willie Colón’s band on ten Fania albums from 1967 to 1973, then a solo star on Fania with Colón producing [LOC: Ospina Romero; Fania]. His song “El Cantante” (1978) earned him the title El Cantante de los Cantantes, the singer of singers, and in 2024 it entered the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry [LOC: Ospina Romero].
Why he matters
Lavoe was the voice of Willie Colón’s band, a partnership the Library of Congress’s essay on “El Cantante” compares to Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie in bebop [LOC: Ospina Romero]. He was also one of the Fania All-Stars’ singers at the Cheetah in 1971, the concert filmed for Our Latin Thing [Craft: Cheetah].
His story, briefly
He was born Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez on September 30, 1946, in Ponce, Puerto Rico [EnciclopediaPR; El Tiempo]. He arrived in New York in 1963 as a teenager and took the stage name LaVoe, from la voz, the voice [LOC: Ospina Romero].
In 1967 Johnny Pacheco, directing the recording of Willie Colón’s debut El Malo, brought Lavoe in to sing lead [Craft: Crime Pays]. They made ten albums together through 1973 [LOC: Ospina Romero]. When Colón gave up his band in 1974, Lavoe went solo, and Colón kept producing his records, starting with La Voz in 1975 [Fania record pages; LOC: Ospina Romero]. Comedia (1978), a comeback after a two-year break, opened with “El Cantante”, a song written by Rubén Blades, and topped Billboard’s Latin Albums chart [LOC: Ospina Romero].
He died in New York on June 29, 1993, at 46 [Fania; El Tiempo].
What makes the music distinct
- Jazz harmony under a dance band. The Colón–Lavoe records often follow the chord progressions of jazz standards [LOC: Ospina Romero].
- A violin that sounds like a string section. From “Periódico de ayer” on, Alfredo de la Fe’s violin, often doubled by a synthesizer, became one of their arranging signatures [LOC: Ospina Romero].
- Puerto Rican country singing in the improvisations. The scholar Marisol Berríos-Miranda names Lavoe as an example of the salsa singers who brought the patterns of jíbaro seis into their soneos [Berríos-Miranda 2004].
- Phrasing that sounds like talking. Flexible, speech-like and easy to recognize in a few bars [Craft: Comedia blog; prpop].
What a dancer can listen for
The clave in “El Cantante”
The Library of Congress essay describes the song as “weaved into the smooth flow of the 2-3 clave” [LOC: Ospina Romero]. That makes it a good song for the exercise on our clave page: in 2-3 clave the pattern is silent on the 1, and the 1 is the beat just before its two straight strokes. What the clave tells you.
The coro and the soneos
“Songoro Cosongo”, the last track on Comedia, runs nearly eight minutes, and Lavoe sings more than 20 soneos in it [Craft: Comedia blog]. Try counting them. Each time the coro repeats its short refrain, the next thing you hear is Lavoe improvising an answer. Following that back-and-forth is one way to practice hearing where phrases begin and end.
The violin
On “Periódico de ayer” and the records after it, listen for the violin and synthesizer playing together as one string section [LOC: Ospina Romero].
Recordings to start with
| Year | Recording | What to listen for |
|---|---|---|
| 1967 | El Malo | Colón’s debut album, the first with Lavoe on lead vocals [Craft: Crime Pays]. |
| 1970 | La Gran Fuga | The Colón–Lavoe band at full strength [Fania record pages]. |
| 1970, 1973 | Asalto Navideño, Vols. 1–2 | Christmas albums, with Lavoe credited as lead singer [Fania record pages]. |
| 1973 | Lo Mato | Produced by Colón and Masucci, near the end of the partnership [Fania record pages]. |
| 1975 | La Voz | His solo debut, produced by Colón [Fania record pages; LOC: Ospina Romero]. |
| 1976 | De ti depende | Includes “Periódico de ayer”, where the violin-as-string-section sound starts [Fania record pages; LOC: Ospina Romero]. |
| 1978 | Comedia | Opens with “El Cantante” and closes with “Songoro Cosongo”, nearly eight minutes of soneos [Craft: Comedia; LOC: Ospina Romero]. |
All on Fania. Years as the label and the Library of Congress give them.
Questions
What clave is “El Cantante” in?
2-3, according to the Library of Congress essay on the recording, which was added to the National Recording Registry in 2024.
Who wrote “El Cantante”?
Rubén Blades. Lavoe recorded it as the opening track of Comedia (1978), produced by Willie Colón.
When was Héctor Lavoe born and when did he die?
He was born on September 30, 1946, in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and died in New York on June 29, 1993, at 46. Some sources say 47, which doesn’t fit his birth date.
Sources
- El Cantante—Héctor Lavoe (1978), Sergio Ospina Romero, Library of Congress National Recording Registry essay, 2024
- Hector Lavoe, Fania Records artist page
- Héctor Lavoe, EnciclopediaPR (Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades)
- Lavoe: Clave de la identidad boricua, Jaime Torres Torres, Fundación Nacional para la Cultura Popular, 2015
- Datos que tal vez no conocía sobre la vida de Héctor Lavoe, a 30 años de su muerte, El Tiempo, 2023
- Announcing the reissue of the Willie Colón classic Crime Pays, Craft Recordings
- Fania All Stars, Live at the Cheetah, Vol. 1, Craft Recordings
- La Voz, Fania Records record page
- De ti depende, Fania Records record page
- La Gran Fuga, Fania Records record page
- Asalto Navideño, Fania Records record page
- Lo Mato, Fania Records record page
- Héctor Lavoe: The Theater Behind the Smile, Craft Recordings, 2026
- Héctor Lavoe, Comedia (LP), Craft Recordings
- Salsa Music as Expressive Liberation, Marisol Berríos-Miranda, Centro Journal 16(2), 2004
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.