Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89153 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2006-01-01
• Running time: 0 seconds

Customer Reviews

Horrible sound
I took the time to write this review because I consider Hector Lavoe to have been one of the best soneros ever ("son" is the original Cuban name to what was later called salsa; therefore, salsa singers are most times called soneros). Lavoe was not much of a composer, but was an extremely versatile original singer with a voice and timbre hard to match. This combined with great composers, writers, and orchestras; meant that "most" of the productions Hector Lavoe was in were worth the time, there was a collaboration of talent from everyone.

Lavoe started and became famous under the Fania label as the singer for the famous trumpet player Willie Colon and his band, they started in the late 60s and separated in early 80s. All those Willie Colon records made with Lavoe around the 1970s are landmarks in salsa history as well as some of Lavoe's solo pieces in the 80s. The image created around this two was to make them the bad boys of salsa. They had like a mature streetwise tone to them, in terms of music and lyrics; some songs were danceable, sad, instrumental, etc. In other words, they had musical substance: and for such, they usually were the top sellers in the label.

Why the low score here? The Fania label did millions during its LP era but during the CD era this music was horribly marketed and packaged (just a picture of the album cover, no info, no back art, and hard to find outside niche markets). So in 2006 as soon as the Fania repackaged and re-mastered CDs started to come out this album was one I was waiting for, I was curious to hear "Periodico de Ayer" (yesterdays newspaper) one of Lavoe's most (if not the most) original, memorable, instrumental, and famous classic re-mastered after so long. I was waiting for a more vibrant and dispersed sound. Boy oh boy, was I disappointed and surprised. Not only did it sound noticeable worst than the one on the old CD "Hector's Gold", I was surprised that [...] would be released in the first place. This sounded horrible and I mean it. It sounded like something they took out of an 8-track cassette that was taking sun inside a Chevrolet since the 70s and then sold in a flea market for 25 cents, please get the picture because it's not an exaggeration. It sounded baaaddd and it is a farce to call such thing re-mastered, please.

If you have the original then there is not much point in this, aside the booklet, and if you don't then I strongly recommend trying to get the now out of print "Hecto's Gold" which is the only other album to date that contains "Periodico de Ayer" with its original acceptable quality. Hector's Gold leaves a lot out but has "El Cantante" and "Periodico de Ayer" and trust me, just for that, is worth it especially if you are going to have only one Lavoe CD. I have many of these new Fania re-mastered CDs including others from Lavoe and Willie Colon, I can tell you that the early ones they took out were very inconsistent, some sounded great and vibrant, some others were questionable in comparison to the original CDs of the early 90s, but this one sadly is the one that just takes it a higher label of mediocrity. It was later that they got their act together. They have been informed of this but who knows if they will do anything about it.

Sadly Hector died in 1993, Willie Colon is alive and kicking but his new music is not. There were people behind that music that are not around anymore. Most of the Salsa being done these days is not worth a cent. All this great Puerto Rican, Cuban & Dominican artists that created the Salsa movement of the 70s in N.Y. with the Fania label grew up in the era when Cuba was the #1 in tropical music and was extremely influential. Cuban culture is the real mother of "Salsa", but under its long(over due) tyrannical communist government Cuba is by now almost as dead and destroyed as Lavoe's flesh. If it was not for the Dominican Johnny Pacheco who started the Fania label, and the Puerto Ricans in N.Y. that took the music, elaborated, and prolonged its existence, this music would have died before it did: Right in Havana clubs in the early 60s instead of in N.Y.C. clubs in the early 80s. This Fania guys were for the 60s & 70s what the Grammy winner Buena Vista Social Club was for the 40s & 50s, just the best among their era. I also recommend everything Lavoe did along with Willie Colon and also the albums La Lupe- Es la Reina, Cheo Feliciano- Cheo, Joe Battan- Saint Latin's Day Massacre, Tito Puente, etc, you can go on from there. Check the Fania site and the Descarga site. Also the Hector Lavoe movie "El Cantante" due summer of 2007. It could be worth it, lets hope so.

Great record but poor sound!
The remastering process hasn't been kind to this classic recording. It sounds muffled and tiny - nothing like the vinyl or, sad to say, its first cd reincarnation. Obviously, the folks at quality control let this one get by. Whatever source material Emusica used for this reissue still does not exculpate the remaster engineer for doing such a lousy job.
Informed sources tell me that there was talk of giving this cd a "face-lift" sometime in the future. But don't hold your breath. Until then, this is all we have.

Disappointed
MamboCha's review was right on the money.

It is a shame that Emusica releases this item with such lousy sonics.

It sounds muffled and without the dynamics that the original CD or vinyl had.

To add insult to injury the artwork used on this CD is pretty cheesy since it appears that they got an LP from a flea market and they blacked out the price tag with a black magic marker (See upper right corner of the cover). They could have used the artwork from the original CD.

Avoid this item unless you do not have the old CD!!!