Chivirico davila biography of donald

Alegre Records will always be remembered as one of the pioneers. The trailblazing label was among the first to light a path for salsa and even the broader Spanish-language music industry. It was even an early stepping stone for Fania Records co-founder Johnny Pacheco, whose first orchestra’s debut album Johnny Pacheco y Su Charanga sold over 100,000 copies and solidified Alegre Records’ legacy. Many more of the genre’s legends can trace their careers back to encounters with Alegre Records founder Al Santiago, a gregarious, loquacious entrepreneur whose boundless energy was apparent even at a young age.

Born and raised in New York, Santiago played the piano as a kid, then quit to take up the saxophone instead. (“I disliked piano so much that I used to play ‘The Minute Waltz’ in 30 seconds so I could get out to play softball,” he said once). He started playing in a band his father and uncle were in, and when the uncle quit, Santiago took over, leading the entire orchestra. Though he was barely 18, Santiago had an ear for up-and-coming talent; he swapped out the older guys for newer musicians until pretty soon, his father was the only member of the band. Still, performing ultimately wasn’t where Santiago would land. After a fateful brush with the prodigiously gifted trumpeter Buck Clayton at a wedding gig, Santiago realized the limitations he’d face as a musician, recalling, “I know I am not an exceptional instrumentalist, and the only way you are going to make bucks is you have to be a superstar performer/leader, not a sideman.”

Santiago went a different route, borrowing $1,800 from his family and opening a record store called Casa Latina del Bronx in 1951 – all while going to college and studying business. Local demolition forced Casa Latina del Bronx to briefly shutter, but Santiago eventually put down a deposit on another vacant store in the Bronx, this time calling it Casalegre Re

Dominican-American musician (1935–2021)

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Pacheco and the second or maternal family name is Knipping.

Musical artist

Juan Pablo Knipping Pacheco (25 March 1935 – 15 February 2021), known as Johnny Pacheco, was a Dominican musician, arranger, composer, bandleader, and record producer. Born in the Dominican Republic, Pacheco became a leading figure in the New York salsa scene in the 1960s and 1970s as the founder and musical director of Fania Records.

Pacheco was one of the leading exponents of pachanga, a blend of Cuban rhythms and Dominicanmerengue in the late 1950s. He popularized the use of the term "salsa" and established the Fania All-Stars to showcase the leading artists of the genre, which propelled him to worldwide fame and had an important role in the evolution of Latin music.

Pacheco was a nine-time Grammy nominee and was awarded the Latin Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award by the Latin Recording Academy in 2005.

Early life and family

Juan Pablo Pacheco Knipping was born on 25 March 1935 in Santiago de los Caballeros, a city in the Dominican Republic. He inherited his passion for music from his father, Rafael Azarías Pacheco, who was the leader and clarinetist of the Orquesta Santa Cecilia. One of the leading Dominican big bands of the 1930s, the Orquesta was the first to record Luis Alberti's merengue "Compadre Pedro Juan". Rafael was the grandson of a Spanish soldier who arrived during the Spanish reannexation of Santo Domingo. His mother, Octavia Knipping Rochet, was the granddaughter of a French colonist, and the great-granddaughter of a German merchant who was married to a Dominican woman born to Spanish colonists.

Pacheco and his family left the Dominican Republic for New York City when he was eleven years old. As a child, he learned to play several

Rafael Chivirico Dávila Rosado was born in San Andres Street in Puerta de Tierra, San Juan, Puerto Rico; On August 2, 1924. His parents, Eustaquio Dávila, a native of San Juan and a dobbing trader at the docks, and his mother Juana Rosario, a native of Bayamón, dedicated to household chores. He was one of the most versatile singers of the Caribbean pentagram, besides being one of the most extraordinary singers of boleros, he was also a natural sonero and an unequaled singer of the bomb and the full, genres of Puerto Rican popular music, as he proved In his great successes and songs of the street that Cortijo and Kako registered for the record label Ansonia.

Its history goes back to the fifties when, in a modest way, with the maestro of Mambo Pérez Prado, the atmosphere of the great metropolis gives him the opportunity to join bands of virtuous young people who in the sixties would begin to be recognized as the leaders of the Salsero movement.

And where does the Chivirico come from? According to Rafael Quintero, who gave him an interview with Rafael Dávila, he told him the following: "El Chivirico comes from a great singer who was a friend of mine, Orlando Guerra Cascarita." There was a jam in Havana, saying: When we were making a recording, the producer asked for me: "What's the name of this?" I said my name and he said, "Well, everyone here is called Rafitas. I recorded two Rafitas: Rafita Martinez and I Rafita Dávila Cascarita intervened and told the Producer: If this one is more popular than a Chivirico in Havana, then put Chivirico, and thus the name of Chivirico Dávila was born. "

Chivirico was one of the few singers who survived the transition from the era of mambo and boogaloo to the sound of New York salsa. When he signed to record as a soloist for Coutique Records, Chivirico already stood out as a composer and singer with the Taboo Quartet by Johnny Goicuría and Richie Ray.

In 1969 Joey Pastrana & His Orchestra