- Based on the life story of the great salsa singer Hector Lavoe from Ponce Puerto.
- THE SINGER The Hector Lavoe Story
A compelling story about a child named Hector Perez. Born in Ponce, Puerto Rico, he grows up with the life long dream of persuing a career in music.
At the age of 18 he decides to fly to New York and stays with his sister Priscilla in the Bronx. She introduces him to a talented musician Willie Colon whom immediately takes him in the studio after noticing his talent. Here they cut their first record together Che Che Cole, 24 hours later they get a Gold Record Award after which Hector is signed to La Fania Record Label. They went on to record hit after hit after hit and became the dynamite duo to reckon with.
Hector changed the 70s music scene with a daring mix of rhumba, merengue, mambo, cha-cha, bolero and other traditional folk rhythms which lead to the invention of a new sound they called Salsa. Fanias president, Jerry Masucci baptized him at the The King of Salsa and replaced his last name Perez with Lavoe, as in the voice.
This new sound traveled the world with Willie and Hector at the forefront receiving Gold Record Awards for every song recorded. Selling out many major concerts like the Madison Square Garden earned him the slogan The Singers Singer a term his peers nicknamed him.
Nevertheless, this would all come with a price for his life was equally balanced with tragedy. In the midst of his loved ones dying around him, a combination of drugs, women and alcohol lead to a very unstable lifestyle destroying relationships within the Fania label, his family, friends and eventually contracting the aids virus, but yet, the public still loved him.
Hector Lavoe's music lives on and still in death his "voice" is heard all over the world for centuries to come. His lifes story is embedded in this film as a memorial for those that remember him as he came to be El Cantante de Los Cantantes.
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