Willie Colon

w/ Hector Lavoe "El Juicio." w/ Hector Valoe "Comedia" (I only like about half of this--some good songs marred by excessive use of string section) w/ Ruben Blades "Siembra." w/ Ruben Blades "Fania All-Stars with Willie Colon and Ruben Blades" (I only like last three tracks) w/ Mon Rivera "There Goes the Neighborhood." Hector Lavoe had a rough sort of sound, not a good singer technically speaking, I think, but he's fun to listen to. Good delivery. Ruben Blades is good all around, technically and as a stylist. Mon Rivera has a quirky, very rhythmic style. (Most of this his work is not strictly salsa in the narrow sense, but plena, and I guess bomba too?, traditional Puerto Rican genres.)

You're making me want to buy more Willie Colon CDs.

Singing has been "technical" for thousands of years. Where have u been? I agree w/ Deraymi that Anthony's voice is better trained, with better range etc. But Lavoe brought to his singing a certain quality of emotion and feeling that I think came from his experiences. Anthony, despite his quality of delivery IMO lacks this. I think a lot of people also like the slight roughness of Lavoe's voice.

It's not about dissing. It's about recognising differences and WHY you like something. You can like different things for different reasons.

I think I probably like him more for his arranging (and composing? does he write much of this music?), and for his general creative direction of projects, than for his playing per se. Trombones usually sound slilghtly comic to me. Somehow he manages to use the humor of the trombone sound without its becoming tiresome to me.

Thinking more about Lavoe: he had some really great people writing songs for him. Again, I can't comment on the lyrics, but musically (and perhaps particularly, melodically), some of these songs have very quickly made an impression on me. They are covered so often that they almost have the status of folk songs.

"Juanito Alimana" is another great Lavoe song with an unforgetable melody. There' something about a lot of these songs that conjures up an almost immediate nostalgia. Maybe I have just heard them enough while surrounded by mostly Latin audiences who grew up with them, but I think there's something in the music itself.

For the newbs:
Start out with Cosa Nuestra.
Then Siembra.
Then there's Solo, Lo Mato, Good Bad And The Ugly, The Big Break, La Fuga, the collabo w/Celia Cruz, Altos Secretos, the various Lavoe and Blades offshoots, and so on.

(The last Ruben Blades CD was okay, I thought. I borrowed it from the library. I didn't like it enough to want to buy it, though if I saw it for a low price I would pick it up. "Danny Boy" worked surprisingly well with Congas beneath it.)

I'd also recommend El Juicio (with Hector Lavoe). Also, I like Colon's collaboration with Mon Rivera There Goes the Neighborhood (but that's pretty focused on Mon Rivera's singing).

But you might be better off taking FW's advice, above, since he knows this stuff more than I do.

I had to check what that is (since I'm not too familiar with this album which I just obtained recently), and yes, "Que Bien te Vez" is really good. Another option, if you especially like Lavoe, is to go for the two 2-CD compilations I've mentioned before: Fania "Legends of Salsa Collection" (where I first heard this song); although, Colon & Co. did put out some albums that work well as albums.

like Lavoe
I like him. I like that nasal, crying sound in his voice. Does Willie C. have anything to do with El Sabio?

Not sure if something was lost during the black-out. You may be right.

I don't know El Sabio. (Again, not to discourage discussion here, by any means, but http://www.descarga.com carries most of this stuff and provides credits for many titles, so it's a partial discography.)

I grabbed Vigilante out of a dollar bin last weekend. 1983, so out of both Colon's and Lavoe's sweet spot.

Pretty odd record, but not a bad one. Hard to recommend as essential or canonical. Also curious that it was from a movie of the same title starring Colon as a gangster. Anyone seen it?

Did the movie ever come out?
See below: "intended"

http://www.fania.com/content/vigilante

Recorded in 1982, “Vigilante” is released at the verge of Fania’s meltdown the following year. Intended as the soundtrack for the movie with the same name where Willie plays a ruthless gang member named Rico Meléndez, this project pairs him again with his compadre and former singer Héctor Lavoe. In fact, it was put on hold by Fania Records because of the label’s pushing of yet another movie involving Colón: Fania’s own The Last Fight, Masucci’s last daring gambit and the one that almost cost him the salsa empire they built during the 1970s.

IMDB indicates that it did: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084867/

Great poster, too.

I remember that movie. I wanted to go see it but my parents wouldn't take me (I was 11).

great album cover too

Triste Y Vacia and Juanito Alimana are both essential songs, imo. The latter is surprisingly great to dance to. It's a bit uncanny how much implied rhythm there is in it. Don't know if that's technically a valid way of putting it but that's how I experience it. I can't remember the other two that clearly, but I think they're less essential.

Ugh to some of my earlier comments on this thread. Lavoe is a lot more than just "fun to listen to," but this thread is old enough that I really wasn't moved much by his singing back when I was originally posting on it.

Great musician but alas now a right wing Maga extremist on twitter

oh no!
that is unfortunate. i just checked for worms and unfortunately, his account was indeed roiling with them. :(

Ugh

"last famous person you were surprised to discover is actually still alive"

Apparently he's only 70, he started recording so young

He’s been on my interview bucket list for years, but no more...

Guess this is the kind of thing Alfred was talking about on the other thread.

He and his band were good when I saw him in 2006. Don’t recall him saying anything political back then.

Colon's headlining an impressive salsa bill on Augut 24 with El Gran Combo, La India, Tito Nieves, Rey Ruiz, Frankie Negron, Los Adolescentes @ Eaglebank Arena near Washington DC. His tweets are still ugly with Maga homophobia and other right wing extremism these days. Re-reading his online bio somewhere I saw that circa 2008 he was a Hillary Clinton fan!

Condolences on the brain worms Willie :(

RIP. Only 75. He started young.

Saw him and an 8 piece band in 2006 doing a great late night gig at a long gone dc danceclub that often hosted Latin and Caribbean dance music events. Colon billed that show at age 55 as his retirement tour gig and onstage he energetically played trombone and sang and largely stuck to the fast-tempoed Afro-Latino approach that he filled dance floors with in his prime.

Todo tiene su final. RIP. :(

Billboard writeup mentions Willie talking about the great Irv Greenbaum but calls him *Herb* Greenbaum.

Leila Cobo who wrote that piece for Billboard is usually pretty good

https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/willie-colon-dead-salsa-1236184449/

Googling shows me that “Herb” rather than “Irv” quote from Colon has been reproduced numerous times over the years. In a 2014 Billboard article and in this 2024 one. But yeah it is Irv

https://mitocadisco.com/fania-records-cumple-60-anos-de-johnny-pacheco-a-ruben-blades-las-estrellas-cuentan-su-historia/

The MAGA turn is so shameful, and such a stain on his legacy. He made music that I cherish, and I want to honor him in death, but I'm unable to move past that in this moment

I was actually unaware of the MAGA turn. When Lincoln Center celebrated Rubén Blades last year, I wondered why Colon wasn't a part of it, and I guessthatanswersmyquestion....

Ugh, it's crazier and more bizarre than I expected.

His MAGA turn should surprise no one, especially that generation. I dwell in these communities.

Honor what you can.

Yep

Googling shows me that “Herb” rather than “Irv” quote from Colon has been reproduced numerous times over the years. In a 2014 Billboard article and in this 2024 one. But yeah it is Irv

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Leach#Influence

Previously discussed here, upthread in a zing-unfriendly spot: Velvet Underground Trainspotting Question

Sorry I have nothing right now I can summarize to fit in the chat about the passing of such a musical titan as the one this thread is about.

Okay, I just picked up Irv's book, which has always been a great source of pleasure for me, to look up what he had to say about Willie, and he didn't disappoint. Now I am getting sentimental. Maybe I need to go to the bar and sing some of Willie and Hector's songs.

Especially with the storm coming tomorrow.

The NY Times obit did not mention his swerve to the right at all. Instead they posted a picture of him with Mike Bloomberg and said only this:

Long interested in politics, he lost the 1994 Democratic primary for a U.S. House seat representing the Bronx and lower Westchester County. A decade later, he worked for Mayor Michael Bloomberg as a liaison to the city’s Latin Media and Entertainment Commission.

One down, two to go.

Rip, this is my favorite Colon tune, a flawless banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mMOwXZpULE

this is the one for me. timeless classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l523eAC8xs

The NY Times obit did not mention his swerve to the right at all.

Looks like they updated it. They mention stint with Bloomberg and then it says: In recent years, he expressed support for President Trump on social media.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/21/arts/music/willie-colon-dead.html

Reading a substack by Puerto Rican Eroc Arroyo-Montano about Colon's political transition-

“El Gran Varón.” 1989, height of the AIDS crisis, he recorded a song about a trans woman who dies alone after her father disowns her. He asked our communities to choose their children. That took faith. That took courage. That took knowing his people might push back and doing it anyway.

And “Tiempo Pa’ Matar.” A protest song with Willie on the mic himself. Naming what the government was doing to young men from our communities. Using poor Black and Brown people as frontline cannon fodder, sending them to Vietnam and bringing them back mutilated.

He and Héctor gave the barrio a mirror and a megaphone. He and Rubén Blades gave us conscious salsa before we had a name for it...There is a particular kind of pain when someone whose music gave you a sense of righteousness, a sense of justice and pride, turns around and cosigns your oppression...

This was a man who knew better. Willie Colón campaigned for David Dinkins (A democratic socialist), New York’s first Black mayor, and served as his special assistant. He ran for Congress as a progressive Democrat in 1994. Served on the Latino Commission on AIDS when our communities were dying and being ignored.

So when did it turn? It’s hard to say exactly but the signs were there. He spent over a decade as an advisor to Michael Bloomberg, whose stop and frisk policy terrorized Black and Brown New Yorkers. The same communities Willie Colón’s music was made for and made by. That’s not a small thing to overlook.

Then in 2014 at 64 years old he graduated from the Westchester County Police Academy and put on a badge. The man who gave us “Pedro Navaja” became a cop.

And then he endorsed Donald Trump. Let me be clear about that. The man who made “Tiempo Pa’ Matar,” who protested a government sending our people to die, endorsed a man who called Mexicans rapists, who caged immigrant children at the border, who threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria like it was a game...

So tonight I’m putting on “Aguanile.” I’m lighting palo santo. I’m letting it do what it’s always done for me. We hold the genius and the failure. Both.

https://icameisawiconjured.substack.com/p/todo-tiene-su-final?r=365qgy&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true

FWIW, that Reddit link I posted above indicated that he also bought into crazy conspiracy theories like Pizzagate, something the OP (among others) witness on his social media feed. Obviously a key part of his turn, but how it fits in (e.g. which came first) is up for debate.

I feel like as he became less active in music he likely starting watching more local news on tv (which always covers local when it bleeds it leads stories about crime) and then Fox etc andthen twitter and became more susceptible to simple-minded hateful craziness as an explanation for everything

Join us for a powerful afternoon of music and remembrance as we celebrate the life and legacy of salsa legend Willie Colón.

DJ Safe Stadick delivers a special tribute set honoring El Malo del Bronx—the legendary trombonist, visionary composer, master arranger and fearless innovator who helped define the very sound of salsa. From the streets of the Bronx to audiences around the world, Willie Colón carried Latin music to new heights with bold creativity and spirit.

We gather to enjoy his music, honor his artistry, his influence, and the community he uplifted. He will forever be El Maestro.

Saturday, February 28th @ 3 p.m. ET/ 12 p.m. PT
@FaniaRecords YouTube Channel

Will Hermes from his Substack on Colon referencing Reuben Blades recent statement and Hermes own words in his Love Goes to Building on Fire book plus his fave songs

https://open.substack.com/pub/newmusicoldmusic/p/rip-willie-colon-a-30-song-primer?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

heard "El día de mi suerte" on the radio over the weekend, good lord that track is >>>>>>>>>

Love that one but that album has at least two other A+ bangers on it.