Willie Colón, Pioneering Salsa Icon, Dead at 75

Willie Colón, the legendary salsa icon, died Saturday morning, his family confirmed. He was 75. A cause of death has not been disclosed.

“It is with profound sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved husband, father, and renowned musician, Willie Colón,” his family said in a statement on his official Facebook page. “He departed peacefully this morning, surrounded by his loving family.”

The statement continued, “Although we mourn his absence, we also rejoice in the eternal gift of his music and the cherished memories it created, which will live on forever.”

Born William Anthony Colón Román on April 28, 1950 in the Bronx in New York City, the musician embraced his Puerto Rican heritage, learning to speak Spanish from his grandmother Antonia.

He launched his six-decade career as a teenager, releasing his first album, 1967’s El Malo, at the precocious age of 16 alongside Héctor Lavoe. Their partnership was a fruitful one, the duo became one of record label Fania’s most important salsa acts.

Lavoe provided the young Colón music lessons, encouraging the musical prodigy to be innovative with instrumentation and song structure.

Colón’s love for music began years prior, while in elementary school, where he played the flute, and shortly after the bugle. By age 13, he picked up the trumpet and began taking lessons, all of these early musical forays informing his distinguished technique and style.

He composed a salsa classic with Lavoe in 1969, “Che Ché Colé” from Cosa Nuestra,  infusing  Afro-Caribbean music with Puerto Rican rhythms. Their pioneering sound was the bedrock that led to salsa’s enduring popularity, which erupted in the Seventies.

In 1976, he turned experimental eye to producing a ballet, “El Baquiné de Los Angelitos Negros,” introducing his symphonic salsa style.

The Seventies also ushered in another fruitful partnership, with Panamanian singer-songwriter Rubén Blades. Though their first collaboration came by way of 1977’s Metiendo Mano! that showed the promise of what was to come, it was the album that followed that cemented the greatness of their partnership. The 1978 album, Siembra, which landed at Number One on Rolling Stone’s Best Salsa Albums list, became the best-selling salsa album of all time, a distinction it kept for decades.

Over Colón’s prolific career he crafted more than 40 albums, earning him nine Gold and five Platinum records. His discography — he sold more than eight million albums worldwide over the course of his career — includes his collaborations with Lavoe, Blades, and Celia Cruz. He was nominated for eight Grammy Awards.

By the end of the Seventies, he ventured into a solo career and also worked in film and television. Beyond his venerable music accomplishments, he was equally known for his sociopolitical work, advocating for the communities he represented.