Search Results for: Tito Rodríguez

How his career starts

We are here with the very talented Irwin Wito Rodriguez (https://www.facebook.com/nmjrecords). Pleased to meet you, Mr. Rodriguez, such a pleasure to have you here. How are you?

Thank you very much, Karina. Thank you for the invitation. Quite well, thanks to God. I am in Florida at the moment, where the temperature is very pleasant.

Talented Puerto Rican singer Wito Rodríguez

Your beginnings in the musical world occured in a rock band, which is very common in many of your colleagues. Many of them start as boleristas and rockers. How did you go from a rock band to singing salsa and other genres like this?

I was born in Chicago and my parents are Puerto Rican, so I was raised American and tended to speak more English than Spanish. I listened only to music in English, but I also listened to Daniel Santos, Los Panchos and Tito Rodriguez at hore since I was a little boy. However, they were my parents’ favorite artists, not mine. As the years went by, my dad bought me my first guitar, so I joined a rock band of four or five kids and we started playing very cool songs. This lasted until I was 14 years old, when my father decided to send us to Puerto Rico and it was a very drastic change for me because now I was going to be in a school where Spanish is spoken and my Spanish was very bad. When I arrived in Puerto Rico, it was very nice to see the island in person because I only knew it from what my dad told me.

Five or six months after I arrived in Puerto Rico, I started singing with another rock band until I turned 16, which was when a very famous percussionist named Chacón (he had a band called Chacón Y Sus Batirítmicos) heard me sing and told me that he would like me to sing with them. He lived near me, so I could go to his place. I started going about twice a week to learn to play the conga and the clave. Around that time, I started learning everything related to salsa and typical Puerto Rican rhythms.

So I started playing in a nightclub, but I wasn’t supposed to do that because I was still 16 years old. So, they got me a jacket, hid me and I started singing there. When I turned 17, I moved to Chicago to finish school and speak English again. Three months later, I started singing salsa with the first orchestra in Chicago whose name was La Orquesta La Justicia from 1971.

So, you didn’t like salsa, but you developed a taste for it.

That’s correct. I didn’t have the joy of attending music school, so I just tried to learn as much as I could from what I saw. If I saw someone playing on a stage, I would approach the musicians, ask questions and clear my doubts. I learned a lot of things on my own.

Image taken from his video clip You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine

Military service and his first orchestra

You were part of the German orchestra Conexión Latina while serving in the army. How did the idea of starting a Latin music group in such a country arise?

When I was in the Orquesta La Justicia, I met many salsa stars like La Lupe, Ismael Rivera, Larry Harlow, Ray Barreto, El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, La Sonora Ponceña and many others. All these artists helped me and taught me many things.

When I joined the U.S. Army, I had the opportunity to sing with an orchestra in Puerto Rico, but I was in Chicago. I accepted and prepared everything to return to the island, but the orchestra had already gone on tour when I arrived and they didn’t take me. It was very sad for me because I left everything in Chicago, since I wasn’t thinking of returning.

From there, I decided to join the U.S. Army and wanted to be sent as far away as possible. A week later, I reveived word that I passed the test and that I would be sent to Germany. That’s when I started a band called Wito Y Su Conjunto Sabor in 1977 along with other Puerto Ricans who also sang or played instruments. We were the only salsa band in Germany at that time. In 1981, I already had an orchestra called La Sonora Antillana and we played for the German audience, which was very tough.

In 1983, I left the army. Then, Luis García, an excellent tres player, and Cano Robles from Conjunto Canayon, Puerto Rico, made my first album called Calorcito. The following year, I released my first album and it was awesome because it led me to release another record production that took me to tour all around Europe.

In 1992, I went back to Tampa, where my dad lived. I came back to be in need because nobody knew who I am there. It was very difficult, so I had to start working until I returned to the Army and was sent to Pennsylvania. In 2007, I finally retired with 30 years of service.

In 2013, I started making my first solo album whose name was Qué Mundo Maravilloso. In 2016, I moved to Orlando, where I finished my other three albums I released later.

Art for the song Qué Mundo Maravilloso

You took opera classes. How did this help you in salsa?

Those classes taught me how to stabilize my voice, know how to modulate, know how to breathe, know how to feel the tone in one part of the body (under your nose), know what tone comes after the previous one and all kinds of things. I also learned some very good exercises to warm up my voice.

Another thing these classes taught me was resistance. Spending an hour singing on stage is not easy.

A lot of singers have a good voice, but they don’t have the necessary training to get to the right tone for them and avoid singing off-key.

I read that you have been nominated for the Hollywood Media Music Awards and the Miami Fox Music Awards for both English and Spanish songs. Which songs are the most successful? English or Spanish?

I try to include even a salsa song in English in all my albums. My last song focuses more on the American audience than the Latin audience. It was a good choice because the video has about 42,000 views on YouTube, which means it attracks more attention than my other work.

One of the things that has done musicians in general most harm has been Covid-19. Many are recovering, but others had to get a job because they could no longer make a living from music.

Many of his songs are related to his Puerto Rican roots

Salsa news in New York

Hello everybody! As always, we have the latest in the salsa scene for our audience. Today, we will talk about Jimmy Delgado’s ongoing projects and the life and work of Johnny Rodriguez during his career.

Jimmy Delgado and his new album

This is Jimmy Delgado

Jimmy Delgado  is an artist born in New York City, United States, on July 29th who has had a very prolific career in the Latin music world. There is not a lot of information about the years in which he became interested in music, but it is known that he started in this world in 1974, that’s when he began working with various orchestras and artists of renown such as Ismael Quintana, La Tipica Novel, the Big Band of Ray Barreto, among others. With this last group, he would perform again in the 1980s and work about five and a half years.

In parallel, he continued to work as a musician for other singers and orchestras, such as Willie Colón on timbales and bongo. At the same time, it is he who replaced one of the most important members of La Típica 73. But his career does not end there, as he also worked with Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Luis Perico Ortiz and many others.

With such a track record, it is not common for him to be so sucessful and for each of his projects to enchant the audience, no matter what time. Today, he has returned to back into the limelight with his most recent phonogram entitled A Mis Mentores…To My Mentors. Timbalero, conguero and bongocero has made these unreleased tracks available to his fans on all music-related digital platforms and are the following:

Si Hecho Palante / La Libertad

Algún Lugar Bajo El Sol

De Qué

Adoración

Alma Con alma

Sin Timbal

Recordando A Barreto

Qué Bonita Es Mi Tierra

Ahora Si Voy A Gozar

(Bolero Medley) La Noche De Anoche / Cada Vez / Sé que volverás

Jimmy´s Descarga

Jimmy being interviewd by Johnny Cruz and El Rubio

Life and work of Johnny Rodriguez

A particularity of Johnny Rodriguez is that he was one of the first artists to create musical trios, which was completely new in the 1930s. That has not stopped him from achieving success with his partners, being the lead voice of the group Johnny Rodríguez Y Su Trío. One of the singles that made him better known was Fichas Negras, which is still remembered by many despite the years that have elapsed since its release.

Johnny traveled throughout Hispanic America and much of Europe to offer his talent to as many fans as possible. One of the countries where he was most successful was Puerto Rico, where he performed constantly on stage and even worked with TV shows on a recurring basis.

In his last years, he hosted a radio show in which he provided advice to young artists who were starting out in the artistic world and talked about his own musical tastes, showing that he believed that past ages were better in that respect. Even after his death many years ago, his legacy is still present in the old and new generations due to the great talent that always characterized him.

Johnny Rodríguez, Manuel Jiménez, Lalo Martínez, and Celso Vega in New York in 1943

In the early 70’s, the trumpet player of La Sonora Ponceña, José “Joe” Rodríguez, decided to leave the orchestra led by Papo and Quique Lucca.

Joe had been part of “La Más Sureña” since almost the foundation of the orchestra and was even the lead trumpet player in the successful productions “Hacheros Pa’ Un Palo” (1968), “Fuego En El 23” (1969), “Algo de Locura” (1971), “Desde Puerto Rico a Nueva York” (1972) and “Sonora Ponceña” (1972) with which the orchestra achieved great international recognition; however, this time, the trumpet player had decided to execute an idea that had been in his head for some time.

He was also joined by percussionist Mickey Ortiz and, incredibly, the lead voice of La Sonora Ponceña, Tito Gómez.

Soon, Joe Rodríguez, with the collaboration of the resigning members and his first cousin, bongos player Francisco “Chalina” Alvarado, who curiously had also been part of La Sonora Ponceña in the past, organized his own orchestra which he called “La Terrífica” and began to travel all over Puerto Rico performing at festivals and patron saint festivals.

Sometime later they signed a contract with the powerful Fania Records label to record with its subsidiary, Internacional Records, their first album under the production of Larry Harlow, titled “Terrífica” (1974), which featured Adalberto Santiago on backing vocals, Héctor Lavoe and Yayo ‘El Indio’, which included the song ‘Hachero Mayor’ written by Francisco Alvarado and vocalized by Tito Gómez as a protest to one of the most popular Sonora Ponceña songs on the island: ‘Hacheros Pa’ Un Palo’ authored by Arsenio Rodríguez.

“Yo traigo el hacha mayor, De aquella 72 Arsenio me la dejó la, con doble filo la traigo yo.

I come to chop down a stick, which they call ‘palo mayor’ because I’m the brave one here, I’m the axeman, I bring the axe, from that 72 Arsenio left it to me, I bring it with a double edge.

I come from the mountains and I bring a lot of firewood,

Gentlemen, I come waving, I am the main axeman.

Seventy-two axes for one stick, with my two-edged axe,

Now I cut it.

I bring the biggest axe, with a double edge I bring it.

 Gentlemen, I went to the mountain and I come very tasty, to distribute to the whole world, I’m the biggest axe man.

Double-edged, double-edged gentleman.

With double edge I bring it.

Careful, jump out of the way, gentlemen, so that they will know, I’m coming with “La Terrífica”.

If you don’t get out of the way, I’ll run over you with my truck.

I’ll bring it with a double edge”.

The new orchestra was doing well, they enjoyed the public’s acceptance.

The contracts began to arrive by themselves and they had a good future, however, Tito Gómez would surprise everyone when he announced that he was resigning from “La Terrífica” because he had received an interesting proposal from New York to join the powerful band of conguero Ray Barretto who, after the sudden departure of his singer Tito Allen, was looking for a new vocalist to accompany the young Panamanian Rubén Blades at the front of his orchestra.

The following year, La Sonora Ponceña records in “Tiene Pimienta” (1975), its next production, the song “Hachero Sin Hacha” in the voice of Miguelito Ortiz (who arrives to the orchestra replacing Tito Gómez to accompany Luigui Texidor), written by Papo Lucca himself, in which he responds harshly about the alleged awarding of the axe to “La Terrífica” and even makes fun of the resignation of Tito Gómez with the pregón “una gallina que no pone porque ya no tiene gallo” (a hen that doesn’t lay because she no longer has a rooster).

“Where is that great hatchet man who advertises himself out therethe one who remembered Arsenio for a triumph to get.

You are nothing more than a parrot a head without brains a hen that does not lay because it no longer has a rooster.

That axe that you have looked for cardboard teeth that was that the great Arsenio, a joke played on you.

Search well in your memory the year sixty-nine when in your presence Arsenio with Lucia sent me an axe as a reward the sign of the woodcutter.

Axemen without an axe, they are.

Your axe does not break skulls, your axe is made of cardboard.

Arsenio mistook you, Arsenio misled you, your time is long gone Ay, I’m telling you, where is that great axeman?

Maybe he died, maybe he died, you have to put your head in it, you have to put inspiration in it”.

Incredibly, when a strong response was expected from “La Terrífica”, its director Joe Rodríguez decided to concentrate his energy on finding a replacement for Tito Gómez and to reinforce his orchestra. Thus, Yolandita Rivera from New York and a 16-year-old teenager named Héctor “Pichie” Pérez joined the group and recorded “Sabor A Pueblo” (1976), their next LP under the production of pianist Jorge Millet.

The differences between both orchestras seemed to vanish as if by magic after a supposed private meeting between the founders of both groups, a situation that allowed them to have a peaceful party.

This fact would be verified later with the recording of two songs by La Terrífica: “Humo En La Cabeza” and ‘”Vida Se Llama Mujer” both authored by Luigui Texidor, the vocalist of La Sonora Ponceña; and the linking to Quique Lucca’s orchestra of vocalist Yolanda Rivera (the main voice of La Terrífica), who, besides other hits, recorded the merengue “Si No Me Meto” composed by Francisco Alvarado, co-founder and bongos player of La Terrífica in the album “El Gigante Del Sur” (1977).

The result of this determination gave great and good results for all, to the extent that Tito Gómez returned to La Sonora Ponceña to record several songs written by Francisco Alvarado, among them “Moreno Soy” included in the album “Explorando” (1978) and eventually Joe Rodríguez participated with Quique Lucca’s orchestra as a guest trumpet player for some trips.

From this moment on, “La Terrífica” would act as a kind of quarry of vocalists and musicians that would provide La Sonora Ponceña with salsa talents, this is the case of Manuel ‘Mannix’ Martínez, Héctor ‘Pichie’ Pérez, Yolanda Rivera, Luisito Carrión, Wito Colón, Luis ‘Cuchy’ Castro (trumpet), Efraín ‘Frao’ Hernández (bass), Freddie Del Valle (trumpet), Japhet Rodríguez (timbal), Jorge Miranda (bongo), among many others.

La Terrífica, from its creation until 1992, recorded ten incredible productions, saying goodbye to the Salsa market with the hit “Corazón Fracturado”.

For his part, Joe Rodriguez, the founder of La Terrifica, has been retired from music for quite some time and devoted to his religion; while Francisco “Chalina” Alvarado founded El Conjunto La Perla and is still immersed in the world of salsa.

Facebook: Orquesta “La Terrífica”

Source: Frank Manuel Orellana 

Article of Interest: Where the idea of the name of the Fania Record label came from