Roberto Roema Y Su Apollo Sound: Roberto Roema Y Su Apollo Sound

Britain has been enriched by immigrants from many parts of the world, but people arriving from Spanish-speaking Central America and the Caribbean have been relatively few in number, and far less visible. So in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when salsa edged out of Spanish Harlem towards the US mainstream, Britain was mostly left out in the cold. The nearest most Brits got to Spanish-speaking US culture was through the perennially popular 1961 movie West Side Story (a good place to start) or Europeanized ballroom-dance versions of mambo and cha cha cha (not so good).

In mid-1970s Britain, however, an passionate dancefloor following for real-thing salsa developed. The catalyst was New York's Fania Records. The label had been formed by the Dominican bandleader Johnny Pacheco and his attorney Jerry Masucci in 1964, but it was not until 1974 that Fania secured a major distribution deal in Britain, making its releases readily accessible. Game on.

2024 is Fania's 60th anniversary and the event is being marked with a reissue program curated by Craft Records imprint Craft Latino. Before the end of the year, Craft Latino plans to release over a dozen remastered 180-gram vinyl album reissues and over two dozen remastered digital albums, and to present live events across New York, Los Angeles, Miami and London.

Among the first batch of LPs is the Fania debut of bandleader and percussionist Roberto Roema and his Apollo Sound, originally released in 1970. A wild, extrovert, brass and percussion-led, high-impact twelve-piece which included three singers, Roema's band was at the forefront of the New York salsa scene. The album includes two of its greatest hits of the period, "Tu Loco Loco, Y Yo Tranquilo" (check the YouTube below) and "El Escapulario." In 1970 New York, salsa bands such as Apollo Sound were as much neighborhood dance bands as they were recording outfits, and in the dancehalls they were expected to play cover versions of popular chart hits, Latin and non-Latin. Roberto Roema Y Su Apollo Sound includes covers of Bobby Capo's ballad "Sonando Con Puerto Rico" and of Otis Redding's "Sitting On The Dock Of The Bay" ("El Pato De La Bahia," titled in Spanish but sung in English), Sly and the Family Stone's "Sing A Simple Song" and Blood, Sweat & Tears' "Spinning Wheel."

Crank up the volume, turn off the AC, and take a trip to New York circa summer 1970.