Willie Colón, pioneer and legend of salsa, dies at 75 | EUROtoday

“Willie Colón they call me El Malo, because the years go by and I keep hitting them,” says Bad Bunny in his hit tune New Yorkin tribute to the Puerto Rican musician, born and raised on the streets of the Bronx and died this Saturday in a New York hospital on the age of 75. Bad Bunny’s tribute, who carried out this tune on the Super Bowl intermission, was, maybe, the final public point out of Columbus, however above all of the well-deserved recognition of somebody who grew to become a legend in his lifetime. Singer, poet, arranger, producer and musical director, Colón started his musical profession on the age of 16 and has left greater than 30 albums, 9 Gold Records and 5 Platinum Records, and greater than eight million data bought.

Also a trombonist and composer, he was a pioneer of salsa since his preliminary collaboration with Héctor Lavoe. In 1967 they each signed the album The Bad to which the Bad Bunny tune alludes, configuring some of the influential duos in salsa below the Fania Records label. With successes like Moon Street, Sun Street, CheChe Cole y My fortunate daygrew to become a key determine of the style within the seventies.

Colón additionally achieved nice achievements with the Panamanian Rubén Blades, forming a really lively duo within the late seventies and early eighties of the final century, with a short solo hiatus and a joint return to the stage within the nineties. Both signed, amongst different albums, Songs from the boring lot. They had been some of the necessary salsa duos within the historical past of Latin music they usually broke up in 2003, supposedly because of a monetary disagreement after a live performance in Puerto Rico.

“It is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father and renowned musician, Willie Colón. He departed peacefully this morning, surrounded by his loving family. While we mourn his absence, we also rejoice in the eternal gift of his music and the cherished memories he created, which will live forever,” his household mentioned in a press release.

“Our family is deeply grateful for your prayers and support during this time of mourning. We kindly ask for privacy as we navigate our grief,” provides the assertion launched by the family of William Anthony Colón Román, the singer’s first identify. The nice manwho was born on April 28, 1950 within the Bronx neighborhood of New York.

Columbus was probably the most Puerto Rican of New Yorkers, and that’s saying rather a lot, as a result of greater than one million Puerto Ricans stay within the State, 17.5% of the island’s whole inhabitants. His bond with the island pulsed all through his greater than 60-year inventive profession. But it was his album Made in Puerto Rico the one who made evident his love for the land the place his household was born and in the direction of his most intimate hyperlink with the island, his grandmother, Antonia Román Pintor.

Although for the remainder it was thought-about a nuyorican (as Puerto Ricans born in New York are referred to as), his grandmother raised him by repeating to him day by day: “Don’t forget that you are Puerto Rican,” as he mentioned in an interview with the Efe company in June 2013. His grandmother, she additionally confessed on her social networks, taught him the which means of conditional love. Colón referred to her as a “jibarita from Manatí”, the city in Puerto Rico the place she got here from, and the place she left in 1928, on the age of twenty-two, seeking a greater life. Toña, as she was identified within the South Bronx neighborhood the place she lived, “died at 91 [años] without knowing English,” his grandson highlighted.

A incontrovertible fact that right this moment, within the midst of the Donald Trump Administration’s offensive towards Latinos, would have put him within the goal, similar to his options. In the Nineteen Fifties and Nineteen Sixties within the United States, Columbus felt he was the goal of discrimination. “At that time they hit you or kicked you. Discrimination was practically legal. It was a very different time,” he declared in that interview. The Declaration of Civil Rights Act dates again to 1964, so little Willie lived the primary 14 years of his life as a stranger in a white nation. Despite being an American, he remembered, within the streets they yelled at him to go to his nation. That thorn caught in his thoughts, the very fact of not having the ability to use loos for whites, or entrances to areas reserved just for them.

It was his grandmother who gave him his first trumpet, when he was 11 years outdated. It began with that instrument; however he additionally discovered the clarinet and have become a grasp of the trombone. Colón was the third artist to signal with the well-known Fania All Stars label and one of many pillars of salsa, worldwide.

Colón’s well being was delicate since he suffered a spectacular automotive accident in 2021 alongside together with his spouse, Julia, in North Carolina. This Wednesday he was admitted for respiratory issues to St. Lawrence Presbyterian Hospital, in Bronxville, a district of the Bronx. After listening to the information, the response {of professional} colleagues, particularly former members of Fania Records, and salsa lovers has flooded social networks. “Master Willie. Today the Bronx trombones inspire my gratitude to God and life for allowing me to listen to the genius of an artist who communicated through his creativity and sensitivity. His influence is embedded in my brain and my heart,” mentioned Elvis Crespo on his social networks.