Johnny Pacheco – the bandleader, songwriter, producer, arranger and co-founder of the Fania Records label who helped popularize salsa on an international scale – has passed away, NPR reports. According to Alex Masucci, brother of Fania co-founder Jerry Masucci, he was recently hospitalized. No cause of death has been disclosed. Pacheco was 85.
Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco moved with his family to New York in the 1940s to escape the Rafael Trujillo dictatorship. He taught himself 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 would soon become synonymous with salsa, and Pacheco was the label’s in-house producer. Pacheco and Fania helped launch 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 roster from the ’60s to’ 80s, releasing multiple albums as a band leader and collaborating with artists such as Cruz.
He often performed and recorded with a supergroup of the label’s artists called the Fania All-Stars. One of the group’s most controversial performances was the 1974 Zaire Music Festival, which coincided with the battle between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. In 2005 Pacheco received the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.