Johnny Pacheco, Fania Records co-founder, dies at 85

[sandensea]

Johnny Pacheco, the legendary bandleader who co-founded Fania Records in the 1960s and became one of the leading architects of the music that would come to be known as salsa, has died. He was 85 years old.

The Dominican-born, New York-raised Pacheco, who lived in New Jersey, died at Holy Name Medical Center, according to published reports. Sources say he had been hospitalized for complications stemming from pneumonia.

Pacheco, a Juilliard-trained multi-instrumentalist who’d found success recording with his band, Pacheco y Su Charanga, sparked a musical revolution when, in 1964, he met Jerry Masucci and together, they founded Fania Records. The two started the label with $5,000, selling albums in Spanish Harlem from the trunks of their cars.

Fania soon became known as the Latin Motown, home to superstars like Celia Cruz, Cheo Feliciano and Héctor Lavoe - and the breeding ground for seminal artists in the genre of music that would come to be known as “salsa,” a collision of traditional Cuban song and pan-Latin rhythms with American jazz and funk.

At: https://www.billboard.com/index.php/articles/columns/latin/9526303/johnny-pacheco-dead

Salsa great Johnny Pacheco, 1935-2021, performing with his group Tumbao Añejo in 2009.

[Judi Lynn]

1. After seeing your post, listening to the music, went to YouTube and heard SO MUCH!

Johnny Pacheco was so well known, and loved, a multitude of people have done tributes, homages to him, have gathered on the street in clearly inhospitable weather, wearing their facemasks, to sing his music, to dance, to praise his work on earth! He has to have been one of the greatest ever! I had no idea he was so famous. There are pictures of him with so many people, performing with so many other huge names from many countries, giving concerts everywhere in the world.

Hearing the song you posted was amazing. I have no idea how someone of his age held out with so much energy as he and they all did through that song. You could feel the energy yourself. It takes more than a will to accomplish it. It has to take a great deal of spirit, too. Your heart has to be in it.

Thank you for sharing that information here, sandensea. We have been squashed flat by an avalanche of so much garbage since over 4 years ago, our attention spans have been taxed beyond belief, we are all living in a Twilight Zone of available consciousness, on emergency rations, and that music absolutely lifts one up and above well far enough to give you time for a tremendous breath of fresh air.

While listening to the music at first I kept focusing on thinking that the keyboard guy should get pants with the pocket linings made with black material because it's so distracting when you're trying to hear the music to see the flashes of white from his pocket linings gaping open. Ha ha. Somehow the music swept my attention away after all, and I forgot all about it until just now. Holy smoke.

Thank you for the music, it might be a good reminder that when we need a significant break from general stress to go to YouTube in a hurry and look up another song from Johnny Pacheco's impressive career!