NEW YORK, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Emusica) - It began as an experiment that very quickly, in a matter of a few weeks, had Salsa music at one of the country's leading coffee stops selling more than 50,000 units of the spicy musical mix. Proving that "you don't have to be
Latino to love Salsa," the Miami-based company Emusica, that bought the publishing rights to the Fania Catalog, has launched a campaign to reach those Latin music lovers that may not be looking in the "
Latin" racks for their dose of Salsa.
Reissuing three stellar CD compilations that capture the "golden age" of the music as it was being expressed and created on the streets of Latin New York, this dynamic trio entitled respectively: El Barrio; The Bad Boogaloo and N.Y.C. Salsa provide a centerstage for familiar hits as well as the unsung, edgy, young salsa bands of the '60s and '70s such as George Guzman, Latin Tempo or Rafi Val & La Differente among many others. With tunes from Frankie Dante's Beethoven's Fifth featuring the creative keyboard work of Mark Diamond to La Lupe's Fever or even Mongo Santamaria's rendition of Lady Marmalade these reissues will take you back to when we mamboed in marches, boogalooed in house parties and salsaed in nightclubs from the Cheetah to the Corso.
"Fania is a cultural phenomenon," says Giora Breil, chief marketing officer with Emusica. "Although it danced around the margins of mainstream American society during the 60s & 70s, some of its most popular exponents such as Joe Cuba, Ray Barretto, Eddie Palmieri and Celia Cruz and bilingual genres such as boogoloo have been household names for decades. However, the success of our Starbucks campaign tells us that this music has a global appeal to everyone, not just Latinos."
Founded by bandleader Johnny Pacheco and the late ex-NYPD cop Jerry Masucci in 1964, Fania spearheaded the New York salsa explosion of the 1970s through classic releases by Hector Lavoe, Ruben Blades, Willie Colon, Celia Cruz and Eddie Palmieri.
All three CDs have already been successfully released in England.
Emusica acquired the Fania Records catalog of more than 1,300 recordings last year. The company has reissued some 200 remastered CDs onto the market with great fanfare. "Salsa today is associated with a particular generation," adds Breil, "but it is a music that has always been intergenerational and multicultural." The Fania catalog, with more than 13,000 tunes, is considered the Motown of Tropical music.
"With this catalog, we want to build on what was produced from a fantastic artistry," Breil underscored.
