Fania Records

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Fania Records

Founded	1964
Founder	Johnny Pacheco Jerry Masucci
Genre	Salsa
Country of origin	US
Location	New York, New York
Official website	www.faniarecords.com

Fania Records was a New York based record label founded by Johnny Pacheco (a musician) and Jerry Masucci (a lawyer) in 1964.

Fania is known for its promotion of what has become known as Salsa music. The label started out a small venture, but it gained popularity after the success of its first official record, Pacheco's "Cañonazo," which led to the expansion of its talent base. ^[1]

Fania launched the careers of many Salsa stars. One of the first artist signed to Fania was Larry Harlow who was very important to Fania's structure.

In 1968 Pacheco invented a "superband" called Fania All-Stars that brought together the elite of Salsa musicians and singers for joint performances and recording. Fania All-Stars were Fania's best selling band, outlasting the label itself. They made their debut at the Red Garter club located in the Village of NYC, but it was their performance at the Cheetah a midtown manhattan club in 1971 which became legendary, Larry Harlow was chosen by Jerry Masucci to be the recording producer of the superband while Pacheco was the director on stage only. The Fania All-Stars was filmed for the documentary "Our Latin Thing" released a year later. (Leon Gast, who directed the film, is an Academy Award winning director of the documentary of Ali's days in Africa prior to the "Rumble in the Jungle". Gast was there to film the concert associated with the performance, which included the Fania All-Stars.) Many did not know that Jerry Masucci structure Fania after Motown even the logo became similar in design. In 1993 Chino Rodriguez manager of many of the Fania artist suggested to Jerry Masucci to bring back the Fania All-Stars in the form of Live concerts, now in 2007 all that is left is "Larry Harlow and the Latin Legends of Fania". Among Fania's signature stars are: Celia Cruz, Larry Harlow, Ray Barretto, Ralfi Pagan , Luis "Perico" Ortiz, Bobby Valentín, Rubén Blades, Hector Lavoe, and many others.

Due to Fania's dominance by the early 1970s, most of the Latin music luminaries of the salsa "boom" of that period came under the umbrella of Fania. These included Hector Lavoe, Willie Colon, and Ray Barretto among many others.

Masucci would eventually become sole owner of Fania Records and the numerous other labels and umbrella labels in South America that he acquired and created. In September 2005, Fania's assets were sold to Emusica and by early 2006, the new owners began to reissue material from Fania's backlog catalog (some of which have never appeared on CD before) with enhanced sound and liner notes. Fania is releasing approx 30 New Mastered CDs every 60 days.^{[citation needed]} The new president and CEO have plans to launch a New phase of Fania All-Stars with Larry Harlow at the Helm and Chino Rodriguez as the agent for the Latin Legends of Fania.^{[citation needed]}

Jerry Masucci died in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Sunday, December 21^st 1997. He was 62 years old. Mr. Jerry Masucci is survived by his three daughters Darlene, Misty and Corrine, and his brother, Alex. It was said that when Jerry passed away so an era came to the end.

Interview with Jerry Masucci talking about his artist's and his marketing of those artists. http://jerrymasucci.com

Jerry Masucci would eventually become sole owner of Fania Records and the numerous other labels and umbrella labels in South America that he acquired and created. Jerry recognised the talents of his stars, he signed and owned them. His money and business acumen launched unknowns to stardom. He put together all his artist's and invited others outside of his label to sing with Fania artists. Masucci a clever man, from lawyer to record producer, to promoter, to feature film Maker. Jerry Masucci had Johnny Pacheco to direct stage productions and Larry Harlow directing the artist in the studio. The history of Fania is the man behind the scenes. Jerry Masucci served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. He became a member of the New York City Police Department. After attending college at night; he took a leave of absence and attended Mexico City College where he played halfback with their football team while earned a degree in Business Administration, Majoring in foreign Trade, and graduating first in his class with cum laude honors. He then returned to the Police Department as a plain clothes policeman and attended New York Law School during the day he graduated from the New York Law School in 1960. He thereafter received a Doctor of Law Degree. Jerry then resigned from the Police Department and worked in Havana, Cuba, as assistant to the Director of Public Relations in the Department of Tourism. A lawyer with Pariser and Masucci, in 1962 Johnny Pacheco used Masucci for his divorce and Masucci saw a business potential in the Latin music scene.

1975 "Live at Yankee Stadium" was included in the second set of 50 recordings in the List of recordings preserved in the United States National Recording Registry,

[edit] List of Fania Records artists

Among the many musicians that performed as members or guests of the Fania All-Stars Masucci's artist's were, in alphabetical order:

Adalberto Santiago, Andy Montañez, Barry Rodgers, Bobby Cruz, Bobby Rodriguez, Bobby Valentin, Celia Cruz, Eddie Palmieri, Harvey Averne, Hector “Bomberito” Zarzuela, Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Miranda, Jimmy Sabater, Joe Bataan, Johnny Pacheco, Jorge Santana, Jose Cheo Feliciano, Larry Harlow, Larry Spencer, Louie Ramírez, Luis "Perico" Ortiz, Manu Dibango, Nicky Marrero, Orestes Vilato, Papo Lucca, Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez, Ralph Robles, Ramon Mongo Santamaria, Ray Barretto, Renaldo Jorge, Ricardo Richie Ray, Roberto Roena, Rubén Blades, Santitos Santos Colon, Tito Puente, Victor Paz, Willie Colón, and Yomo Toro.