Héctor Lavoe

Héctor Lavoe, born Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez in Ponce, Puerto Rico, was one of the defining voices of salsa music. He moved to New York City as a teenager and, after working with orchestras led by figures such as Kako and Tito Puente, became the lead singer for trombonist and bandleader Willie Colón, forming one of the most influential partnerships in salsa history on the Fania label.

Lavoe's voice — bright, agile, and full of improvisational flair — combined Puerto Rican folk traditions like plena and bomba with Afro-Cuban rhythms and the urban swagger of New York's Nuyorican community. Songs such as «El Cantante» (written by Rubén Blades), «Periódico de Ayer», and «El Todopoderoso» became genre-defining classics, and his gift for soneo, the improvised vocal call-and-response central to salsa, made him a model for generations of singers.

After parting ways with Willie Colón in the mid-1970s, Lavoe continued as a solo artist, cementing his status as «El Cantante de los Cantantes» (the singer of singers). His life was marked by personal struggles, including addiction and illness, which have been chronicled in biographies and the 2006 biopic «El Cantante». Despite his death in 1993, Lavoe remains a towering figure whose recordings continue to define the golden era of salsa.