Fania Records, Alive and Present in the Digital Age

Hector Lavoe, Celia Cruz and Tito Puente are back. Well, sort of. Legendary Salsa label Fania Records has dusted off its immense catalog (it contains over 1,300 records!) and digitized the whole lot for your enjoyment. Founded by Dominican bandleader Johnny Pacheco in 1964, the label was the home base of salsa’s heavy hitters through the 1970’s. Since that time, it mostly remained a thing of the past, thought of nostalgically by listeners like my dad, whose vinyl collection rarely emerged from the basement.

That’s all changing, though. Fania has a glitzy website meant to attract a younger audience with podcasts, a blog, news items and social networking options (yes, much like your parents, Fania is also on Facebook and Twitter). It also has new releases, like Tito Rodriguez’s El Inolvidable, which have been completely remastered. My favorite feature of Fania’s virtual headquarters is a radio player that streams music for free. The music (especially Ruben Blade’s “Pedro Navaja”) reminds me of my mom and dad’s house parties, back when there was more dancing than talking and the well-worn wooden floors earned a new coat of wax the next day.