The godfather of salsa who got the world dancing to a Latin beat

1935–2021

In 1963, the Dominican-born bandleader Johnny Pacheco jumped into business with the attorney handling his divorce: Jerry Masucci, an ItalianAmerican ex-cop with a love for Cuban dance music. The pair founded Fania Records, with Pacheco as the label’s chief producer and talent scout, and started selling LPs from the trunks of their cars in Spanish Harlem. By the 1970s, Fania was being hailed as the Latin Motown, home to superstars such as Celia Cruz, Héctor Lavoe, and Rubén Blades and the breeding ground of salsa, a distinctly New York blend of Cuban mambo, Puerto Rican bomba, Dominican merengue, and American jazz and funk. The lyrics of the songs—many written by Pacheco—often tackled weighty subjects such as racism and cultural pride, but the music never lost its propulsive rhythm. “Our only goal,” Pacheco said, “was to make people dance.”

Born in Santiago de los Caballeros in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco moved with his family “to New York when he was 11 years old,” said Billboard. A precocious talent, he studied percussion at the Juilliard School and worked in Latin bands before starting his own hit outfit, Pacheco y Su Charanga. At Fania, he organized his label’s top talent for blockbuster concerts. In 1973, the Fania All Stars played to 44,000 people at Yankee Stadium, with Pacheco—his rhinestonecovered white shirt drenched in sweat—leading the audience into a musical frenzy. Fania collapsed in the mid1980s amid a bitter dispute between Pacheco and Masucci “over unpaid royalties,” said The Washington Post. Always energetic, Pacheco kept performing and writing into his 80s. His tombstone, he said, should read “Here lies Johnny Pacheco, against his will.”

Johnny Pacheco