Johnny Pacheco – the band’s leader, composer, producer, arranger and co-founder of the Fania Records label that helped popularize salsa on an international scale – died, reports NPR. He was recently hospitalized, according to the brother of Fania co-founder Jerry Masucci, Alex Masucci. No cause of death has been disclosed. Pacheco was 85 years old.
Pacheco was born in the Dominican Republic and moved with his family to New York in the 1940s to escape the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. He learned several instruments by himself before studying percussion at Julliard. He became an active studio musician and, in the early 1960s, his band Pacheco Y Su Charanga popularized pachanga music.
In 1963, Pacheco founded Fania Records with Jerry Masucci. The record company would soon become synonymous with salsa, and Pacheco was the record producer. Pacheco and Fania helped kick-start the careers of Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, Ruben Blades, Héctor Lavoe and many others. He wrote dozens of iconic songs, including “Mi Gente” (popularized by Lavoe). He was also a prolific member of the label’s roster from the 60s to the 80s, releasing several albums as a band leader, as well as collaborations with artists like Cruz.
He frequently performed and recorded with a supergroup of label artists called Fania All-Stars. One of the group’s most prominent performances was the 1974 music festival in Zaire, which coincided with the struggle of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. In 2005, Pacheco received the Latin Grammy Award for his work as a whole.