Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco: Celia & Johnny

To commemorate the 60th anniversary of Fania Records, the iconic New York City label co-founded in 1964 by Dominican-born composer-bandleader Johnny Pacheco, Craft Latino has released more than a dozen remastered 180-gram vinyl reissues. Heading up the global rollout is this 1974 album pairing bandleader Pacheco with legendary Cuban singer Celia Cruz, the undisputed “Queen of Salsa.” Cruz, who began her career in the 1950s singing guarachas and rumbas in Havana with the popular group Sonora Matancera, left her native country in 1960 after the Cuban Revolution. She eventually emigrated to New York City, where she began collaborating with Tito Puente. Signing with Fania Records in 1973 brought her to a new level of attention Stateside, and she scored a hit single the following year with “Quimbara,” the lively and infectious track that kicks off this reissue. Elsewhere on her breakthrough album, Cruz delivers a percolating salsafied adaptation of the traditional Afro-Peruvian folk song “Toro Mata,” then turns romantic on the bolero “Vieja Luna” before hitting a triumphant son montuno groove on “El Paso del Mulo.” Other vinyl reissues in the Craft Latino series include classic 70s albums by Eddie Palmieri, Pete Rodriguez, Willie Colón, Héctor Lavoe, and the Fania All-Stars.