Johnny Pacheco, Fania, and salsa in New York

1964-01-01 · 1964

Fania Records and bandleader Johnny Pacheco gave New York a name and a company for Cuban-rooted dance music played with a city sound. Without Pacheco, salsa as a scene is hard to tell. “If salsa exists (and at least I’m sure it does), there’s a name without which one cannot even conceive of its existence. And that name is Johnny Pacheco” — Leonardo Padura, Cuban novelist, quoted in Ted Henken, music historian, “From Son to Salsa,” Latin American Research Review 41, no. 3 (2006), p. 192.

Genres: Salsa