Bobby Rivas is an El Salvadoran salsa/balladeer singer, composer, actor and musician. His band performs salsa and Latin music in general at his group's concerts.
Born in El Salvador, the son of a Nicaraguan father and a Salvadorean mother, Rivas began singing at age six in school shows, church choirs, benefits, weddings..
At age eleven, Rivas participated in the "Buscando Estrellas" festival, from which he emerged a finalist. At thirteen, he joined the Chucho Tovar Flores orchestra, relocating to Los Angeles, California.
Rivas then joined with Alex Acuña, Luis Conte, Yari More, Justo Almario and others, to form "The Los Angeles Salsa All Stars," a twenty piece band that performed in Tuesday night descargas at the Peruvian Room.
In 1986, Rivas took first prize in the OTI Festival in Los Angeles. He accepted invitations to sing in the song festivals, such as The Curaçao Song Festival, Holland Casino Sheveningeng, Colombia Festibuga, Peru Ancon Festival, and New Yorks' "Festival Latino de la Cancion".
Rivas He appeared in "Las Palmas De Oro" in Mexico City, acting in the movie "Pesadilla En Las Vegas," and in "L.A. Confidential." Riva's voice is the voice of Sebastian in the Spanish version of "The Little Mermaid." His music is also featured in "The Shield FX."
Salsa music is a style of Latin American music. Because most of the basic musical components predate the labeling of salsa, there have been many controversies regarding its origin. Most songs considered as salsa are primarily based on son montuno, with elements of mambo, Latin jazz, bomba, plena and guaracha. All of these elements are adapted to fit the basic son montuno template when performed within the context of salsa.
Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso, known as Celia Cruz, was a Cuban-American singer and one of the most popular Latin artists of the 20th century. Cruz rose to fame in Cuba during the 1950s as a singer of guarachas, earning the nickname "La Guarachera de Cuba". In the following decades, she became known internationally as the "Queen of Salsa" due to her contributions to Latin music in the United States.
Carlos Enrique Estremera Colón was a Puerto Rican Salsa singer who was a native of Santurce, Puerto Rico. Estremera was nicknamed "el niño de oro" and later "el dueño del soneo", for his uncanny ability to improvise lyrics to Salsa music. Estremera, was albino, and billed as "El Cano".
Héctor Juan Pérez Martínez, better known as Héctor Lavoe, was a Puerto Rican salsa singer. Lavoe is considered to be possibly the best and most important singer and interpreter in the history of salsa music because he helped to establish the popularity of this musical genre in the decades of 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His personality, style and the qualities of his voice led him to a successful artistic career in the whole field of Latin music and salsa during the 1970s and 1980s. The cleanness and brightness of his voice, coupled with impeccable diction and the ability to sing long and fast phrases with total naturalness, made him one of the favorite singers of the Latin public.
Pedro Knight Caraballo was a Cuban musician, and the husband and manager of singer Celia Cruz.
El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, commonly known as El Gran Combo, is a Puerto Rican salsa orchestra based in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2012, it was often considered Puerto Rico's most successful musical group. The group received the moniker La Universidad de la Salsa in Colombia, due to the sheer number of famous salsa musicians and singers who developed their careers with it, who started with the group, or who were occasionally backed up by the band and La India.
Marvin Santiago was a Puerto Rican salsa singer who became famous all across Latin America during the 1970s. He was also a part-time comedian on Puerto Rican television.
Bobby Cruz, is a salsa singer and religious minister. He was part of the duo Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz. Both Cruz and Ray became religious ministers and as such founded over 70 Christian churches during the time they retired from popular music, which lasted about 16 years.
Ricardo "Richie" Ray is a Nuyorican virtuoso pianist, singer, music arranger, composer and religious minister known for his success beginning in 1965 as part of the duo Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz. He is known as "El Embajador del Piano".
Enrique Arsenio Lucca Quiñones better known as Papo Lucca, is a Puerto Rican multi-instrumentalist best known for his pianist skills. His main musical genres are Salsa and Latin Jazz. He ranks with the late Charlie Palmieri, as one of the best piano instrumentalists in Latin Jazz and Salsa. He is the co-founder with his father Don Enrique "Quique" Lucca Caraballo of the Puerto Rican band La Sonora Ponceña. He has also played and recorded with the Fania All-Stars, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón, Celia Cruz, Johnny Pacheco, Bobby Valentín, Ismael Quintana, Gloria Estefan, Adalberto Santiago, Andy Montañez, Pablo Milanés, and Rubén Blades. He is also a well-known music arranger.
The Fania All-Stars is a musical group formed in 1968 as a showcase for the musicians on Fania Records, the leading salsa music record label of the time.
Alberto Naranjo [nah-rahn'-ho] was a Venezuelan musician. His mother, the singer Graciela Naranjo, was a radio, film and television pioneer in her homeland. Largely self-taught, Naranjo embarked on a similar musical course, becoming – like his mother – one of Venezuela's icons of contemporary popular music.
Israel López Valdés, better known as Cachao, was a Cuban double bassist and composer. Cachao is widely known as the co-creator of the mambo and a master of the descarga. Throughout his career he also performed and recorded in a variety of music styles ranging from classical music to salsa. An exile in the United States since the 1960s, he only achieved international fame following a career revival in the 1990s.
Juan Pablo Pacheco Knipping, known as Johnny Pacheco, was a Dominican musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer who in the 1970s became one of the leading exponents of salsa as well in the late 1950s called the pachanga, a blend of Cuban rhythms and Dominican merengue, which propelled him to worldwide fame and had an important role in the evolution of Latin music.
José Alberto Justiniano, better known by his stage name José Alberto "El Canario", is a salsa singer from the Dominican Republic. José Alberto moved to Puerto Rico with his family at the age of seven, and inspired by his rich Dominican culture went on to polish his singing at Las Antillas Military Academy. He relocated to New York in the early 1970s and sang with several orchestras. He received international attention as the singer of Típica 73 in October 1977.
Melina Almodóvar, also known as La Muñeca de la Salsa and La Chica Del Bling, is a Puerto Rican salsa singer, songwriter, dancer, and entertainer. Known for her high-energy performances and salsa dancing skills, she combines old-school salsa moves with contemporary styles of dancing and singing. She is also credited with establishing the first successful salsa orchestra in the Southern United States, Orquesta Caliente.
Alfredo Manuel De La Fé is a Cuban-born and New York-based violinist who lived in Colombia for more than 16 years and is responsible for transforming the violin into an important sound of Salsa and Latin music. The first solo violinist to perform with a Salsa orchestra, De La Fé has toured the world more than thirty times, appearing in concert and participating in more than one hundred albums by such top-ranked Latin artists as Eddie Palmieri, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, José Alberto "El Canario", Cheo Feliciano, The Fania All-Stars, Santana and Larry Harlow. His second solo album, Alfredo, released in 1979, received a Grammy nomination as "Best Latin album".
Issac Delgado is one of the founders of the band NG La Banda and is a popular salsa and timba performer.
Roger Dawson is a jazz percussionist, conga drummer, bandleader and jazz composer. He was a leading jazz and salsa disc jockey in the US and acknowledged as at the forefront of New York's salsa music explosion of the seventies and early eighties. He was the creator of the long running "Salsa Meets Jazz" concert series at New York's Village Gate club.
Canelita Medina is a Venezuelan salsa singer noted for singing in the Cuban Son style. She had always dreamt of becoming a singer as a young girl, imitating the salsa singer Celia Cruz. When she entered a radio talent program on Radio Continente, she caught the attention of talent agents with her unique voice. Over the years, Canelita has achieved great success, both nationally and internationally, and is successful to this day. Through more than 50 years of her life as an artist, Canelita Medina has received many awards.
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