Fania Records put salsa on the map. Can it evolve?

There was a time when Fania Records was the most transcendent label in Latin music — hailed as the Motown of salsa. From its apocalyptic rise in late ’60s New York to its triumphant empire of sound throughout the ‘70s and ’80s, the company sold albums by the millions, its incomparable roster showcasing the pedigree and sophistication of Afro-Caribbean music: Celia Cruz and Tito Puente. Héctor Lavoe, Willie Colón and Rubén Blades. Ray Barretto, Larry Harlow and Eddie Palmieri, to name a few.

But the imprint that defined the identity of an entire genre eventually succumbed — like salsa itself — to inevitable decay and the emergence of new trends. When Daddy Yankee dropped “Gasolina” in summer 2004, many thought of reggaetón as the salsa of the younger generation — music that is Puerto Rican to the core, edgy and unpredictable, socio-politically aware and compulsively danceable.

Hector Lavoe — Fania 60th anniversary cover art for 2024 vinyl reissues by Craft Recordings Latino.

(Craft Latino)

But the Fania legacy remains, not only in the memories of those who were lucky to experience the ’70s salsa explosion in full bloom but also most importantly, in a catalog that includes thousands of timeless albums.

In 2024, the label celebrated its 60th anniversary, and the question on whether this treasure trove of Latin culture is being curated properly has become more pertinent than ever.

“If you wore a Fania T-shirt in New York during the ‘90s, people would stop you on every block and ask where you got it,” says Bruce McIntosh, vice president of Latin catalog at Craft Recordings, the Concord imprint in charge of Fania and other prestige labels.

“For kids today, it’s not their parents who listen to this music, but their grandparents. They have heard the songs and the artists but are unfamiliar with the label. It’s our mission to make the new generations aware of it.”

Fania was founded in 1964 by Johnny Pacheco, a prolific Dominican musician and bandleader, and divorce attorney Jerry Masucci in order to release Pacheco’s “Cañonazo” — a lovely, rustic collection of lilting tropical dance tunes, including a cover of the Cuban standard “Fania.” Dozens of masterpieces followed, from Ray Barretto’s 1968 expansive “Acid” — a celebration of psychedelia, Latin soul and boogaloo — to Cruz and Pacheco’s joyful “Celia & Johnny” — a 1974 LP that gave Cruz her mojo back and confirmed her Queen of Salsa status with the mega-hit “Químbara.”

“Fania All Stars” — Fania 60th anniversary’s cover art for 2024 vinyl reissues by Craft Recordings Latino.

(Craft Latino)

By the late ’90s, the company had gobbled up the assets of most of its competitors — classic labels like Tico, Alegre and Inca. But its glorious catalog lay in disarray, waiting for an astute buyer willing to mine its precious gems.

The label changed hands a couple times and then in 2018, Concord Music acquired Fania Records and publishing — its 19,000 master recordings and 8,000 compositions — in a deal reported in the vicinity of $30 million. Considering the huge size and cultural significance of these assets, fans have been waiting to see what steps Concord will take to curate the Fania canon.

Not much, as it turns out.

Other than manufacturing a handsome CD box set of Latin soul singles, Concord has limited its curation to showcasing the original albums in high-resolution audio on streaming services and releasing a handful of classic titles on 180 gram vinyl. “We’re doing about a dozen vinyl releases around the 60th anniversary,” says Sig Sigworth, president of Craft Recordings. “We just have to pick and choose which albums we’re going to do.”

More than 40 million records were sold in the U.S. last year, but with streaming still taking the lion’s share, vinyl amounts to less than 5% of album equivalent music consumption. Fania reissues are ideal for DJs and collectors but they do little to highlight the depth of the label’s discography.

Cover art for reissue of a Roberto Roena record.

(Craft Latino)

In 2018, Craft released a sumptuous, five-CD box set on another flagship imprint. “Stax ‘68: A Memphis Story” compiles and annotates the singles released by the iconic soul label in 1968, one of its most fertile years. Another set followed in 2023 — “Written In Their Soul: The Stax Songwriters Demos.” Could Fania benefit from a similar approach?

“The first thing I would do is remaster and reissue the complete catalog in physical format,” salsa legend Blades says from his home in New York. “Putting out the music by itself wouldn’t be enough, though. I would commission a series of box sets, examining the music and placing it in the right historical context.”

At age 76, Blades remains active in music. In November, he added another Latin Grammy to his collection. A Panamanian singer-songwriter, he arrived in New York in the early ‘70s, got a job in the Fania mailroom and from there persuaded some of the label’s stars to record his compositions. After a stint as the singer with Baretto’s orchestra, he formed a brilliant partnership with trombonist and producer Willie Colón. Released in 1978, their sociopolitical tropical manifesto “Siembra” remains the quintessential salsa LP.

The cover art for a 2024 vinyl reissue of a Celia Cruz LP.

(Craft Latino)

“Something that hasn’t been discussed enough is salsa’s contribution in the fight against racism,” he adds. “No one cared about the color of your skin at the Palladium nightclub. It didn’t matter if you were ugly, had dirty shoes or three teeth missing. If you knew how to move on the dance floor, the most beautiful girls would fight over you.”

Tomás Cookman, founder of the Los Angeles-based boutique label Nacional Records, and one of the most passionate champions of Latin music in the U.S., has his own wishes for the catalog.

“If I was in charge of Fania, I would definitely take a master class at Rhino Records,” says Cookman. “I handle Talking Heads, and I see the kind of love and quality that Rhino is investing into the band’s recent reissues.”

A lifelong salsa fan, Cookman dreamed of acquiring the Fania assets himself, but Concord beat him to the punch as he attempted to raise funds.

Cover art for a reissue of a Ralfi Pagan album.

(Craft Latino)

“Of course, it’s so easy to be the Monday morning quarterback,” he says with a smile. “But I feel Concord is being shy about promoting the music. And we’re not in 1987 anymore, when you had to print 200,000 copies of a release. In this day and age, you can just order 10,000 copies, and sell all of them. We do that routinely at Nacional.”

Looking into the future, there are two potential Fania avenues. One is focusing on the catalog’s more obscure titles. For every album by Cruz or Puente, there is a wealth of lesser known gems — from the ragged, self-titled 1972 debut of La Conquistadora, featuring 16-year-old pianist Oscar Hernández, future leader of the Spanish Harlem Orchestra, to “In Line,” a swanky boogaloo session by conguero George Guzman.

The label has scoured the master tapes in search of demos and outtakes, false starts and studio banter — a strategy that has paid off handsome dividends for a number of luminaries, from Elvis Presley to King Crimson.

“We have outtakes, and some odds and ends, but there’s nothing new,” counters McIntosh. “Everything has already been discovered. There are a lot of false starts, but no complete songs. A lot of it is not even music, like laughter breaking out or [salsa star] Héctor Lavoe asking someone to shut the door. It could be added content — but digitally, there’s not a lot of places where you can put that.”

“There’s another aspect where Fania has failed,” argues Blades. “They should have released new albums by the surviving musicians. The original artists who participated in the salsa explosion of the ’70s should have made new recordings and organized a tour that would, in itself, help to revive the catalog. But they did none of that. At the end of the day, these people are in the business of selling records.”

For now, the lavish vinyl reissues will have to do. And for people approaching the Fania discography for the first time, the old albums still dazzle with their poetry and vision.

“We’re also focused on teaching young people what the roots of Latin music are,” says McIntosh. “Where are those Rauw Alejandro or Bad Bunny samples coming from. Some of these kids don’t even know what a CD is, because they’re 18 years old.”

Album art for a Hector Lavoe reissue.

(Craft Latino)

“When you look at this kind of reissue, you’ve got to be able to tell a story in order to curate something in a unique way,” says Sigworth. “How are we going to tell it? How do we interweave the music and the liner notes in order to take that narrative where we want it to go? Fania was a gateway for not just the music but also the voice of Latinos in the ’70s and ’80s.”

Blades, who continues to perform at sold-out venues across the Americas, believes that the potential of salsa to reach the mainstream is still there.

“To think that this music is old and irrelevant is not grounded in reality,” he says. “I just came back from performing a concert in Cali and saw 20,000 Colombians singing along. Most of them were young. I told them, ‘When this song came out, you hadn’t been born yet.’”