About
Also known as: Hector Avoe, Hector Lavoe, Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez, Héctor Lavoé
Few voices in salsa have ever hit as hard as Héctor Lavoe's. The Puerto Rican singer spent the better part of three decades shaping the sound of a genre, first as the fearless frontman for Willie Colón's band starting in 1967, where tracks like "El Malo" announced a raw, street level salsa that the Latin community in New York could call its own. That partnership produced a string of landmark albums before Lavoe stepped out as a solo act, delivering hits like "Periódico de ayer", "Bandolera", and the Rubén Blades penned "El cantante", a song so tied to his identity it became his nickname: El Cantante de los Cantantes. He was also a fixture with the Fania All Stars, the all star collective that essentially ran Latin music during that era. His voice had a quality that was impossible to ignore, refined yet urgent, and his stage charisma was in a class of its own. Behind the scenes, his life was marked by serious struggles with addiction, personal losses, and illness, and he died in 1993 from AIDS related complications. His catalog remains essential listening for anyone serious about salsa.
