Salsa idol Johnny Pacheco dies at 85
NEW YORK — Salsa idol Johnny Pacheco, who was a co-founder of Fania Records, Eddie Palmieri’s bandmate and backer of music stars such as Ruben Blades, Willie Colon and Celia Cruz, died Monday. He was 85.
He had been hospitalized a few days earlier for pneumonia, his wife, Maria Elena “Cuqui”î Pacheco, said on the artist’s Facebook account. Fania
Records tweeted that the musician was “the man most responsible for the genre of salsa music. He was a visionary and his music will live on eternally.”î
Blades said on social media that “Pacheco leaves us with an important musical legacy, represented by all the collaborations he made during his distinguished career.”î
Singer Marc Anthony lamented the loss of Pacheco, calling him “maestro of maestrosî and a good friend.”
Pacheco was born March 25, 1935, in the Dominican Republic into a family of musicians. In the 1940s the family moved to New York, where he taught himself to play accordion, violin, saxophone and clarinet and studied percussion at Juilliard.
In 1954 he formed The Chuchulecos Boys with Palmieri on piano, Barry Rogers on trombone and other musicians who would gain renown in the salsa scene.
But the life-changer came in 1963, when Pacheco and attorney Jerry Masucci founded Fania Records.
Pacheco was the music director, composer, arranger and producer, overseeing the label’s genre of music that came to be known as salsa — a mixture of Cuban mambo, guaracha and chachach , Puerto Rican rhythms and Dominican meringue.