Johnny Pacheco – the band’s leader, composer, producer, arranger and co-founder of Fania Records, which helped popularize salsa internationally – has died, NPR reports. He was recently hospitalized, according to Fania’s co-founding brother, Jerry Masucci, Alex Masucci. No cause of death has been revealed. 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 before studying percussion at Julliard. He became a working 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 label will soon become synonymous with salsa, and Pacheco was the maker of the label’s house. Pacheco and Fania helped initiate the careers of Celia Cruz, Willie Colón, Ruben Blades, Héctor Lavoe and so many others. He wrote dozens of iconic songs, including “Mi Gente” (popularized by Lavoe). He was also a prolific member of the label’s list from the 1960s to the 1980s, releasing several albums as a band leader, as well as collaborating with artists such as Cruz.
He often sang and recorded with a supergroup of artists from the record label called Fania All-Stars. One of the group’s most important performances was the 1974 Zaire Music Festival, which coincided with the struggle of Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. In 2005, Pacheco received the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.