Speaker 1: I've got a spicy question to kick us off today.
Speaker 2: Oh I love spicy. Give me them school bos.
Speaker 1: Okay, as besties, what is the biggest fight that you
Speaker 1: and I have had that we're willing to share publicly?
Speaker 1: We're recording, remember this is a podcast.
Speaker 2: I can tell you the biggest fight we've had that
Speaker 2: I'm willing to talk about on the mike.
Speaker 1: That was not the question. I think the biggest fight
Speaker 1: we've ever gotten into is what do you define as
Speaker 1: orange on a lip? I define as orange on a yeah, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you're right.
Speaker 2: It's are our fights, you know, because we really do
Speaker 2: get along and we actually know how to communicate as friends.
Speaker 2: But I feel like our fights are definitely make up related,
Speaker 2: like your eyeliner placement and you want it longer and thicker.
Speaker 2: And if this is red, then what's orange? Our quotes
Speaker 2: I've heard you say so, yeah, it's lipstick, it's lipstick.
Speaker 1: In line of grass, I will say that we are
Speaker 1: both perfectionist when it comes to our craft, and even
Speaker 1: though Joseph is technically the expert at makeup and skincare,
Speaker 1: I do consider myself an elevated applicator. You are you
Speaker 1: know what you are and I'm pretty good at doing makeup.
Speaker 1: We end up.
Speaker 2: Collabing really well because you usually just give in exactly.
Speaker 1: Joseph. When we do get in a fight, which is
Speaker 1: rare and usually about stupid shit like what color lipstick
Speaker 1: I want to wear on TV that day? How would
Speaker 1: you describe yourself in a sight? Are you the aggressor
Speaker 1: do you retreat?
Speaker 2: You know, I guess when I'm really in the moment,
Speaker 2: it's my ego talking and I've just determined what I'm
Speaker 2: going to use, right, because I feel like we're really
Speaker 2: good communicators. I feel like after I've just kind of
Speaker 2: settled down and you're just kind of like, I know
Speaker 2: what you're saying, and it's in this light and blah
Speaker 2: blah blah, I can kind of see the bigger picture,
Speaker 2: and I don't admit defeat because then I will understand
Speaker 2: what you're saying.
Speaker 1: Now, I'm just trying to convince you to wear what
Speaker 1: I want. Yeah, I was it. You definitely do not.
Speaker 1: To somebody that doesn't know you, it would appear that
Speaker 1: you are backing down, but you're actually not. You're like string,
Speaker 1: You're only strengthening your position, right, And then you're doing
Speaker 1: like some kind of weird circumventing to get me to
Speaker 1: believe what you said is right, and then I think
Speaker 1: I'm actually right. But no, you guys, it was just
Speaker 1: Joseph all along. Yeah, it was like some might call
Speaker 1: that gas lighting.
Speaker 2: I'm a beauty gas lighter. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Anyway, the reason we're digging up old
Speaker 1: graves here isn't for any nefarious purposes.
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's a wrong kind of spicy ew I said,
Speaker 2: nefarious purposes.
Speaker 1: Anyway. The point is besties we fight. I mean, sometimes
Speaker 1: we just get on each other's nerves.
Speaker 2: And sometimes you get so close that when you do
Speaker 2: butt heads it becomes life or death.
Speaker 1: And when we last left Wrikolon, he found not just
Speaker 1: a front man for his Latin jazz orchestra.
Speaker 2: But something of an artistic soulmate, h the Nikki Jam
Speaker 2: to his daddy Yankee.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and together they would release nine full length albums
Speaker 1: over six years. Basically, they were the secret Sauce to
Speaker 1: Funya success, ushering in the age of Salsa.
Speaker 2: But sometimes when you change the game, you end up
Speaker 2: wanting to be the only.
Speaker 1: Player, especially when the game gets to your teammate's head.
Speaker 1: Today we're taking a look at how Willie and Hector
Speaker 1: redefined Latin music before going their separate ways.
Speaker 2: We better not separate, which we're for Eva, We're bad
Speaker 2: girls for life.
Speaker 1: I'm your host Lillianavoskar and I'm Joseph Carrio and this
Speaker 1: is Becoming an Icon a weekly podcast where we give
Speaker 1: you the rundown on how today's most famous latinv stars
Speaker 1: have shaped pop culture and given the world some extra level.
Speaker 1: Sit back and get comfortable.
Speaker 2: Because we are going in the only way we know how,
Speaker 2: with Buenas, Bibas.
Speaker 1: Junasriesas, some and a lot of opinions as we relive
Speaker 1: their greatest achievements on our journey to find out what
Speaker 1: makes them so iconic. Hector Martinez knew he would end
Speaker 1: up being kind of a big deal. He was born
Speaker 1: in Ones in nineteen forty six to a very musical family.
Speaker 2: His mother sang, his uncle played the trece, his father
Speaker 2: sang and played guitar, and big fans his grandfather saying
Speaker 2: controversial protests.
Speaker 1: His father was a mechanic, His father was a mechanic.
Speaker 1: His father's sister was a mechanic. Like when Hector cried
Speaker 1: as a baby. He did it in key, so no surprise.
Speaker 1: When he was a teenager, his music teacher could tell
Speaker 1: he had what it takes and took him under his wing.
Speaker 2: Teach taught him the meaning of stage presence, and by
Speaker 2: age seventeen, Hector had ditched school and was singing in
Speaker 2: a ten piece band.
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty three, he and the band chased their
Speaker 1: dreams to New York, where mambo mania was still in
Speaker 1: full effect. That's where he met Willie Colonne at the
Speaker 1: Ponces Social Club, named for the very city Hector hailed from,
Speaker 1: and after joining the band and signing to Fania Records,
Speaker 1: Hector dond his stage name Hector Lovo, a play on lavos.
Speaker 2: Labo you know that Puerto Rican Spanish where you leave
Speaker 2: off to the ends of the words like labo labos.
Speaker 1: Y'all, I heard you saying weeppa in episode one. You're
Speaker 1: one of us now. And by the way, we are
Speaker 1: not the only people that do that, but yes, one
Speaker 1: hundred percent, that is totally why.
Speaker 2: So Lavon Polonne formed a duo. Levo brought lavos and
Speaker 2: Cologne brought danois.
Speaker 1: Or at least that's how the old guard of Latin
Speaker 1: jazz felt about the duo's music. AKA. While most Latin
Speaker 1: jazz orchestras up until that point were more or less
Speaker 1: purest Gologne took the jazz part to its logical conclusion.
Speaker 2: He kept things modern and mixed little bits of rock,
Speaker 2: funk and soul and R and B into his band's.
Speaker 1: Repertoire, along with distinctly Puerto Rican sounds such as Kibara,
Speaker 1: bomba and Lena.
Speaker 2: There was still plenty to satisfy long time Latin jazz listeners,
Speaker 2: but mambo Mania pretty much got killed by Beatlemania. Case
Speaker 2: in point, the legendary Palladium Ballroom closed that year after
Speaker 2: losing its liquor.
Speaker 1: License, which meant it was time for something new, and
Speaker 1: with their fusion approach to Latin jazz, Willi and Hector
Speaker 1: established themselves decisively as the next generation of Latin musicians
Speaker 1: in the United States.
Speaker 2: Starting with nineteen sixty seven's e La Malo and nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eights The Hustler.
Speaker 1: These albums did two things right away.
Speaker 2: First, they debuted the duo's mafioso steeze.
Speaker 1: I highly encourage you guys to look up these covers online.
Speaker 1: We're looking at the pictures right now, and on first
Speaker 1: glance you're like, wait a second, what is this? Is
Speaker 1: this like a mafia Godfather gone Puerto Rican?
Speaker 2: Wait?
Speaker 1: Do you know what? We need? This?
Speaker 2: Me and you red shurtleneck, black blazers. We're going that's it.
Speaker 2: This is our new becoming an icon season three cover.
Speaker 1: Or we should just go dressed as weely go On
Speaker 1: and Hector Levau for Halloween. Shut your butt, that's what
Speaker 1: we're doing. It's very, very good.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So the cover for Hustler has Wheeli, Hector and members
Speaker 1: of the band crowded around this pool table and dapper suits.
Speaker 1: It looks like they're maybe so Frank Sinatra. It's very
Speaker 1: the god Okay, Godfather, Yeah, it's very Godfather. They're holding
Speaker 1: SIGs maybe Wait is that a lot of cash? It is?
Speaker 1: I think they're betting. All bets are on here. So
Speaker 1: these cover looks are iconic. But the second defining feature
Speaker 1: of these albums was Boogloo, a precursor to salsa and
Speaker 1: the direct results of that fusion approach that Willy brought
Speaker 1: to the table.
Speaker 2: Boogleoo combined the call and response vocals of Cuban Son
Speaker 2: with the harder, faster rhythms of soul.
Speaker 1: Example, I like it like that. In Layman's terms, it
Speaker 1: was easy to sing along to and even better, easy
Speaker 1: to dance to, which is exactly what you want to
Speaker 1: set off a dance craze.
Speaker 2: And just for a minute, that's exactly what Boogleloo did.
Speaker 2: The genre formed common ground between Latino and Black American
Speaker 2: club goers in the sixties, giving the old guard of
Speaker 2: Latin jazz a run for their money.
Speaker 1: So much so that, rumor has it, the old heads
Speaker 1: tried to keep boogaloo down as the style and the
Speaker 1: younger musicians playing it started to crowd out the mambo bands.
Speaker 1: Those old Latin artists supposedly pressured booking agents and promoters
Speaker 1: to blacklist the younger bands from music venues. Why do
Speaker 1: old people hate young people so much, you know what?
Speaker 1: Because it enforces change. And ultimately Boogoloo was short lived,
Speaker 1: but Willie and Hector and Fania along with them, rode
Speaker 1: the boololo wave to chart climbing success. Despite being virtual unknowns,
Speaker 1: these first two records sold big.
Speaker 2: And with their next album, nineteen sixty nine Guisandro, they
Speaker 2: heralded the coming of Salza.
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about what makes salsa salsa on the
Speaker 1: show before back in our Celia Cruz Trio. Celia Cruz
Speaker 1: herself said, salsa is Cuban music with another name. It's mambo, chacacha,
Speaker 1: rumba son all the Cuban rhythms under one name.
Speaker 2: People have also argued over whether satsa actually describes a
Speaker 2: genre or if it's just a marketing term.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I was so young back then.
Speaker 2: In April of this year twenty twenty four has been
Speaker 2: long bitch, I.
Speaker 1: Could not agree more so anyway, og Sansa is musically
Speaker 1: not so far off from the Latin jazz that came before.
Speaker 1: That's why elder statespersons of Latin music like Diepo and
Speaker 1: Celia Cruz could slot so easily into the salsa revolution.
Speaker 2: But there's one thing that sets satsa apart from the
Speaker 2: crowd pleasing big bands of Latin jazz. Yester years attitude
Speaker 2: grit category is street life realness.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I want to see what you come up with
Speaker 1: for that. The Latin jazz of the post war years
Speaker 1: was all glitz and glamour, not unlike a Havannah nightclub.
Speaker 1: But Salza she was from the streets. The Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: music journalist Jamie Torres writes this the Colonna valduo outlined
Speaker 1: a sound of their own, a revolutionary salta in which
Speaker 1: the smell of garbage accumulated in the corner of the ghetto,
Speaker 1: the aroma of marijuana captivating damn like sounds like my house.
Speaker 2: He also wrote that you could hear the screams of
Speaker 2: naked children in the alley, sex workers clapping back at
Speaker 2: their pimps, and the wish for happiness among the Bourrigua diaspora.
Speaker 1: If you listen to our episode on Los Digres del Norte,
Speaker 1: there's actually a bit of similarity with Corridos. Many of
Speaker 1: Willy and Hector's songs were just stories about what was
Speaker 1: going on around them. Like the title track of Guisando.
Speaker 2: Hector sings about a pickpocket named Vincent who sticks his
Speaker 2: hand in a purse and finds not a wallet but
Speaker 2: a mouse trap, and Hector basically tells him, you're doing amazing, sweetie.
Speaker 1: He sings, keep sticking your hand where it doesn't belong,
Speaker 1: and who knows what you'll find next. It's very sassy,
Speaker 1: and they get just as real on Noma. Then Candela
Speaker 1: a song about neighborhood gossip and the evil eye child.
Speaker 1: Did you grow up hearing about El Maldeo?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think like everyone well I don't
Speaker 2: know everyone knew that, but yes, and Maldo Woe people
Speaker 2: would wear evil eyes like all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: It does go to show you how connected Really and
Speaker 1: Hector were to the culture of New York and that
Speaker 1: connection would deepen over four more albums, Go Sandestra, Why
Speaker 1: are you going to Have? Saw Christmas? La Grande Fuga,
Speaker 1: and El Huisio. They also kept up the Mafioso Steve.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about these covers. These covers are giving straight
Speaker 1: up criminal, maybe organized criminal, but criminal. Nonetheless, Joseph has
Speaker 1: nothing to say for the first time in his life.
Speaker 1: That's the assault on Christmas album cover. Just we're not
Speaker 1: going to talk about that. That is just hilarious. I
Speaker 1: will say I am in love with some of the
Speaker 1: font choices here because obviously what's old is now new
Speaker 1: and like you could make some money on Canva with
Speaker 1: these font choices.
Speaker 2: Yes, but also you know what, the one, the super
Speaker 2: Mafioso one, I mean that kind of looks like a
Speaker 2: Tom Ford campaign.
Speaker 1: The one where he's basically holding up what looks like
Speaker 1: a bag that would hold over yeah with go sanuestra.
Speaker 1: You guys, he's literally standing under what is the Brooklyn Bridge?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. It looks like a bridge in New York.
Speaker 1: Let's just call it a Brooklyn bridge. He looks like
Speaker 1: he's standing under a bridge with a body that he
Speaker 1: just pulled out from the East River.
Speaker 2: And then about we're about to throw down because there's
Speaker 2: a weight and you see that.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, he's about to throw that motherfucker in the river.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what kind of message were they sending? Do not
Speaker 2: come for us unless we send for that ass.
Speaker 1: Willi and Hector were the biggest names in salsa, which
Speaker 1: made it all the more shocking when they decided to
Speaker 1: go their separate ways. After a string of genre defining albums,
Speaker 1: Willi and Hector released nineteen seventy three's Lomato, their eighth
Speaker 1: album as a duo and their fourth album to reach
Speaker 1: gold certification.
Speaker 2: By this record, everything had fallen into place musically. Hector's
Speaker 2: vocals were living up to his stage name. On record
Speaker 2: and on stage, he was playful, acrobatic, and unmistakable.
Speaker 1: The same could be said of released trombone playing, he
Speaker 1: could lay down distinctive hooks like the iconic horn line
Speaker 1: on La Murga and find the perfect way for different
Speaker 1: styles of salsa music to fold into a each other.
Speaker 1: And whereas Boogaloo ended up being a passing craze, Sadza
Speaker 1: had become an undisputed force in Latin music.
Speaker 2: But between Willie and Hector things were turning sour, and
Speaker 2: you could hear it on the record. The Bad Boys
Speaker 2: always had some dark lyrics, but the backstreet tales on
Speaker 2: Lomato were a little less playful and a little more grim.
Speaker 1: Whereas Guisando told a tale of come up ins for
Speaker 1: a petty thief, Gaye Luna Gaya Sol presented the barrio
Speaker 1: as a place where no one lives peacefully, where you
Speaker 1: have to watch your words and keep your eyes ahead
Speaker 1: to keep your life fun. Fact, this wasn't a song
Speaker 1: about New York, but about two streets in La Perla,
Speaker 1: the same poor neighborhood in San Juan, where a little
Speaker 1: under two decades later, Puerto Rican b Regaton would hatch
Speaker 1: at a little club called The Noise.
Speaker 2: These parallels are wild, y'all, But let's talk about the
Speaker 2: album cover Willie's holding a sleepy Yehito at gunpoint. The
Speaker 2: full title says, I'll kill him if you don't buy
Speaker 2: this record.
Speaker 1: The story here is that this is actually a reference
Speaker 1: to a famous National Lampoon magazine cover where a dog
Speaker 1: is held at gunpoint. If you don't buy this magazine,
Speaker 1: We'll kill this dog. And they say comedy doesn't a twelve.
Speaker 1: I mean all of this shit is dark. Yeah right.
Speaker 1: The album is dark, The comedy is dark, the magazine
Speaker 1: cover is dark. But perhaps the most revealing track on
Speaker 1: it might be Dodo piennes sufinad. Everything has its ending.
Speaker 1: The lyrics describe a wilting carnation, a world champion losing
Speaker 1: that which is dear to him, personal loss, and personal attacks.
Speaker 2: Everything has its ending, and the Bad Boys partnership was
Speaker 2: about to end in bad blood.
Speaker 1: Since the day Willie met him, Hector Levau had been
Speaker 1: a playful, somewhat childlike person, maybe even a little immature,
Speaker 1: some might say. And in the music business of the seventies,
Speaker 1: let alone just New York in the seventies, a person
Speaker 1: like Hector, he.
Speaker 2: Didn't stand a chance. As coke became the drug of choice,
Speaker 2: both on the streets and behind the closed doors of
Speaker 2: the record label offices, Hector fell into the trap.
Speaker 1: Addiction turned the playful singer with whom Willy had formed
Speaker 1: a close bond into a hostile, unpredictable person.
Speaker 2: You could kind of see it from the jump, the
Speaker 2: whole oh you don't want me to join the band thing.
Speaker 1: But the drugs amplified all of Hector's worst qualities. According
Speaker 1: to Willy, quote he didn't want the party to end.
Speaker 1: He wanted to go on and on and on and on,
Speaker 1: quote unquote. Friends started arriving with gifts, saying try this,
Speaker 1: try that.
Speaker 2: Not that Willy abstained completely. This is el Malow we're
Speaker 2: talking about. But some people just can't say no. And
Speaker 2: Hector was one of those people.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen seventy four, Hector no showed at several concerts,
Speaker 1: were pissed and sober. Concert promoters, many of whom had
Speaker 1: direct connections with the mob.
Speaker 2: Those good fellow ass record covers weren't just for Steeze.
Speaker 2: The music biz had mafiosos up plenty, and if you
Speaker 2: lost them money, they'd make sure you lost something of.
Speaker 1: Yours, anything from a prize belonging to a loved one
Speaker 1: to a limb and what's more, the music was suffering.
Speaker 1: Hector couldn't be counted on to show up to rehearsals.
Speaker 1: Willy rehearsed with the orchestra on his own, and when
Speaker 1: Hector showed up to record, they just went with the
Speaker 1: first take and hurried him out.
Speaker 2: Real talk, though it says a lot that he could
Speaker 2: just nail the first take and move.
Speaker 1: On absolutely, and that's probably why Willy and Hector managed
Speaker 1: to continue on as long as they did. His talent
Speaker 1: was second to none, but his absence from concerts was
Speaker 1: a straw that ultimately broke the camel's back.
Speaker 2: Because the mafia probably threatened to break Willie's back.
Speaker 1: That and the fans were happy, and so was everyone
Speaker 1: who worked with him. Hector and Willie would co build
Speaker 1: just one more album, nineteen seventy five's The Good, the
Speaker 1: Bad and the Ugly.
Speaker 2: And as we learned with Daddy Yankee, just because you
Speaker 2: got in the booth to lay down vocals, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: you were in the same room with.
Speaker 1: The other guy, right. And as Willy expanded his footprint
Speaker 1: as a producer over the seventies, he would still produce
Speaker 1: Hector's albums to great sonic and commercial success, but personally
Speaker 1: he kept his distance. Still, Willy had sympathy for Hector
Speaker 1: decades later, in two thousand and six, when the much
Speaker 1: hated Hector level biopic El Cantante dropped, starring j Loo
Speaker 1: and Mark Anthony, Willi would say the real story of
Speaker 1: the film would have been Hector fighting with his charisma
Speaker 1: and talent against the obstacles of an industry that takes
Speaker 1: advantage of the artist. Instead, they made another movie about
Speaker 1: two Puerto Rican drug addicts. Oh shit, I know that
Speaker 1: people don't like this movie. No, I know, yes, people
Speaker 1: pay in the movie. They don't like the movie. I
Speaker 1: actually enjoyed Alan. I might be the only person on
Speaker 1: the planet that rented it or whatever, bought it on demand.
Speaker 1: I watched it over the pandemic. Funny enough, I was
Speaker 1: very bored, and I watched it again and I thought
Speaker 1: it was really good. Patrick my husband could not sit
Speaker 1: through it. He was like, no, no, no, no, this is awful.
Speaker 1: But I really liked it. And it was very much
Speaker 1: you know, art imitating life imitating art imitating life. Situation
Speaker 1: with Jylo and Mark Anthony in it. She's also good
Speaker 1: in it. Girl who she No, don't don't she's good
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: I have known you to be a lot of things,
Speaker 2: but a liar. You are not a mena.
Speaker 1: I'm not a Menidos, but I am a stan whatever whatever.
Speaker 2: But actually I would tell you this, I would like
Speaker 2: to have seen the story of Hector, like against the
Speaker 2: obstacles of the industry, you know, I would have liked
Speaker 2: to see that, because that really is you need to
Speaker 2: go through those challenges and you know, like highlighting the
Speaker 2: drug aspect, like yeah, that was a big part of it,
Speaker 2: but there was just so much more.
Speaker 1: Totally. It is not easy to exist and grow up
Speaker 1: in the music industry in any decade. Every every decade
Speaker 1: has its own devils, right, And for the sixties and
Speaker 1: seventies when they were growing up, it was drugs and mafia,
Speaker 1: and that was kind of the end for that. You know.
Speaker 2: I just wonder, like, how can you distance yourself from
Speaker 2: a friend or collaborator and still like how can you
Speaker 2: still work with someone and still care about them?
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's pretend we're in a therapy session. If
Speaker 1: you were telling me about an abusive boyfriend. Damien. His
Speaker 1: name is not dam I e n. He lives at
Speaker 1: eighty seven Park Place, New York, New York. That's a
Speaker 1: fake address, by the way. What I'm saying is how
Speaker 1: I think you have to do it for yourself, right,
Speaker 1: I think you say listen, like, I'm on my own game.
Speaker 1: I can't bring all this chaos and catastroph into my
Speaker 1: own life. It's what does my therapist tell me, Not
Speaker 1: your problem to fix. Yeah, somebody's mad at you. You
Speaker 1: take accountability for whatever you did, but it is not
Speaker 1: your problem to fix how they feel about you. It
Speaker 1: is your problem to work on yourself and accept accountability.
Speaker 1: So I think that's how you do it. You and
Speaker 1: with some people they just got to go. Like I
Speaker 1: do believe in that too, Like some people just they
Speaker 1: get the cut like bye bye.
Speaker 2: It's just, you know, I sometimes think it's just so hard,
Speaker 2: especially when you've had to come up with someone like
Speaker 2: really you know, they learn so much about each about themselves,
Speaker 2: and you know, just leaving that behind, or like having
Speaker 2: to leave someone you came up with behind, it's just
Speaker 2: so it's your past, it's who you also are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, but you know what. Michelle Obama I think,
Speaker 1: has a super famous quote about this where even though
Speaker 1: they grew up with you came up with you. Not
Speaker 1: everybody is ready for the ride, right, Like, not everyone
Speaker 1: is ready for the ride. And if you want to
Speaker 1: get to where your ultimate success and destination is, not
Speaker 1: everyone is in the car. Sorry, you're in my car.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Maybe we're in a coop. It's two seeds. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. So after the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,
Speaker 1: the Bad Boys were no more.
Speaker 2: Oh but some of Willy Colan's most iconic collaborations were
Speaker 2: still ahead.
Speaker 1: Far from being lost with that as longtime collaborator, Willie
Speaker 1: found a new fire after the Bad Boys parted ways,
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy seven ended up being a big year
Speaker 1: for him. The year we went Big Willi Style. Yes,
Speaker 1: let's go with that, okay. So the Willy Colon sound
Speaker 1: aka a gleeful mix of musical styles and instrumentations from
Speaker 1: all over Latin America smushed into the framework of Afro
Speaker 1: Cuban rhythms, shall now be referred to as Big Willie Style.
Speaker 1: Does that work for you? So happy?
Speaker 2: Nineteen seventy seven the year that Cologne shared the wealth
Speaker 2: of his Big Willi Style with a bunch of different
Speaker 2: vocalists on the final label.
Speaker 1: Resulting in some of the most exciting salsa recordings to
Speaker 1: come out of that era. If you listen to our
Speaker 1: Celia episodes, you'll remember the audaciously titled only They could
Speaker 1: Have made This.
Speaker 2: Album, an album where La Rena ditched the classic cavana
Speaker 2: big band sound for the smoother, more eclectic styles that
Speaker 2: Willy had developed over the decade.
Speaker 1: Cologne skills as an arranger and producer empowered Celia to
Speaker 1: show a different side of her powerhouse vocals. There were
Speaker 1: excursions into samba and Panamanian thambod along with classic bolero,
Speaker 1: merengue and more.
Speaker 2: This record was Willy's biggest creative challenge yet, but not
Speaker 2: just for musical reasons. He was working with the real
Speaker 2: life legends straight from La Isla.
Speaker 1: Thematically, so much of Willy Colon's music had dealt with
Speaker 1: the relationship between New yorka on the island of Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: a geographic gap more than fifteen hundred miles wide and
Speaker 1: for a second generation mainlander like Cologne, several fathoms deep.
Speaker 2: Celia, meanwhile, was approaching her second decade of exile following
Speaker 2: the nineteen fifty nine Cuban Revolution. These two came from
Speaker 2: different worlds, and yet they shared a common feeling of estrangement.
Speaker 1: No surprise then, that these two penn Latinos and estadosunidos
Speaker 1: a call for unity among us bound Latinos. Seriously, if
Speaker 1: you haven't yet, please go back and listen to our
Speaker 1: Celia episodes for more on this incredible movement in the culture.
Speaker 2: Celia and Willie would produce three albums together in total.
Speaker 2: Not only that, Willi and Celia would come to see
Speaker 2: each other as family after send Us passing decades later
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three, it was Willie who organized
Speaker 2: her massive funeral in NYC.
Speaker 1: But this wasn't the only partnership that Willi formed after
Speaker 1: he parted ways with fellow bad boy Hector Leveau.
Speaker 2: After recording one track for nineteen seventy fives to Good
Speaker 2: Debat and the Ugly Pannumanian singer Ruben Blades decided to
Speaker 2: keep working with Willie.
Speaker 1: He had big shoes to fill after willie string of
Speaker 1: albums with Hector, but Rubin and Willie's collaborations would turn
Speaker 1: out to be some of both artists defining work.
Speaker 2: Between nineteen seventy seven and nineteen eighty two, the two
Speaker 2: would release four albums Mentien do Mano, Ciembra, concerne Es,
Speaker 2: Sola de los Abrios, and The Last Fight not the
Speaker 2: Last One in English the Last Fight.
Speaker 1: These albums are the epitome of salsa dura's socially conscious lyrics.
Speaker 1: Because remember nineteen seventy seven. Is it just the year
Speaker 1: of Willy Colann's creative zenith. It's also the year of
Speaker 1: New York City's lowest point.
Speaker 2: The burning of the South Bronx, citywide blackouts, the Son
Speaker 2: of Sam murders, the Apple was rotting, and unities like
Speaker 2: Willie's were hit the hardest.
Speaker 1: These albums told it like it was. Ciambra in particular
Speaker 1: is a bona fide classic of the genre. The scent
Speaker 1: ripples beyond New York and all throughout the Americas, especially
Speaker 1: it's standout track, Pedro Navaja.
Speaker 2: The story of a knife wielding killer with a gold
Speaker 2: tooth who gets the jump on a call girl, only
Speaker 2: for the call girl to pull a gun on him
Speaker 2: that you end up killing one another, only for a
Speaker 2: beggar to come by and take the knife and pistol
Speaker 2: along with two dollars.
Speaker 1: Wow. Musically, the song is full of key changes, the
Speaker 1: sound of police sirens and an ironic West Side Story
Speaker 1: reference out of contacts. The song's refrain La Vida de
Speaker 1: da Pressa's basically, life comes at you fast. Sounds like
Speaker 1: something your abuela might tell you in a calming type
Speaker 1: of way, but in.
Speaker 2: The song, it sounds like a warning. You don't know
Speaker 2: what's coming around the next corner.
Speaker 1: And maybe Uruben and Willie didn't know what was coming
Speaker 1: when the song got so big across the Americas that
Speaker 1: it spawned two feature films and a stage musical, and.
Speaker 2: They sure didn't know the album Cimra would end up
Speaker 2: causing it another beef decades later between Willy and a singer.
Speaker 1: But that's next time, y'all. The beef must wait on
Speaker 1: the next. Becoming an Icon, Willi Colonne flies solo in
Speaker 1: more ways than one. Becoming an Icon is presented by
Speaker 1: Sonoo and Iheart's Michael Duda podcast Network. Listen to Becoming
Speaker 1: an Icon on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast