656 Tito Puente (1923-2000) “Oye Como Va” 1963

“The King of Latin Music, Ernest Anthony Puente, Jr., was born…in New York City to parents who has just arrived from their native Puerto Rico, grew up in East Harlem’s El Barrio neighborhood, and with his sister performed as a child song and dance team in the early 1930s…Puente would subsequently laugh when he told the story of how he was initially outraged when he learned that a rock group had covered his song—until he received the first royalty check…Tito Puente was…’the most influential artist in the development of Latin American music in the United States during the twentieth century’” (Steve Sullivan, Encyclopedia of Great Popular Recordings, 2013). 

Tito Puente “Oye Como Va”