El Cantante

By 1977 Héctor Lavoe's career looked to be fading. Drug abuse and depression had taken a toll on his life and work, and some people were already predicting the end. That year, by one account, Lavoe was found in a car after an overdose, and his producer Willie Colón called Rubén Blades, who was recording with Colón at the time, to ask for a strong song that might help him recover. Blades had one: "El Cantante", which he had just finished and planned to record himself. He was reluctant to give it away, but Colón and Blades's girlfriend at the time, Paula Campbell, talked him into it. The song describes a singer who must appear cheerful on stage whatever pain he carries, a portrait that fitted Lavoe closely. Colón produced it with strings and harp over the percussion, and it came out in 1978 as the first single from Lavoe's album Comedia. It revived his career. Comedia quickly went gold, and the song earned Lavoe his lasting nickname, the Singer of Singers. Blades has acknowledged many times since that Lavoe lifted the song to classic status and sang it better than he could have, saying in 2012 that nobody could sing it better. The 2006 film about Lavoe's life, starring Marc Anthony, took its title from it, and in 2024 the Library of Congress added the recording to the National Recording Registry. It remains salsa's great song about the cost of performing joy.