Chatting with Bobby Marin
Latin Cool Records

April 11, 2003 was a very special day because I got to interview a person that I really admire, Mr. Bobby Marin. Marin is one of the many people in New York that helped develop “Música Movida”. he recorded with everybody from Joe Bataan to Louie Ramirez, he worked with Al Santiago, Pacheco, Willie Colon, Nelson González, Mauricio Smith and the list goes on and on. While enjoying a Martini, Julián Mejía, Bobby Marín and my self spent a few hours talking about what we like to talk, Latin Music.

Efrain Donaldson(ED): Can you tell us a little bit about the history of New York Salsa?

Bobby Marin(BM): New York Salsa starts back as I remember, there was a couple of radio stations. Those days they called it “Musica Movida” and it was the Tito Puente, Tito Rodrigues, Machito. Along came Symphony Sid, he was a Jazz dj and he started playing latin music on a regular basis on WEBG I think. He was a very famous Jazz dj but decided to play latin music in those days, I’m talking about….

ED: 1960s right?

BM: Right, 1960s and another fellow started doing what he was doing, there were two of them actually, the first one by the name of Bob Pedro Harris then came Dick Ricardo Sugar and none of them were spanish you know all judios but they knew the music well and once they started doing that, when we got the music played on a regular basis its started picking up and the main label at that time was Tico Records.

ED: Owned by Tito Rodriguez, right?

BM: No, it was owned by a guy named I think it was Speagle, I have to get the right information. My brother knows all that, maybe we call him in fact you should talk to him on the phone he goes back before I do. But Tico Records was a hot label and eventually was sold to Roulette Records. Tico became a established label and Tito Puente’s records and Tito Rodriguez recorded with Tico, all their music started getting heavy and became a business. So that went alone until a fellow by the name of Al Santiago he used to owned a record label, he formed Alegre Records so he started giving competition to Tico. He signed up Pacheco, Eddie Palmieri, Charlie Palmieri, everybody, Orlando Marin at that time just about everybody and Tico became a hot label. This was in the 60s, I was in the airforce so I came back to New York around 1966 and at that time I was writing songs for groups that were like the Beatles because I was stationed in Michigan and when I came back my brother was already producing for Deca Records and introduced me to a fellow by the name of Louie Ramires. Ramires and I got together and started. He asked me if I had any song that were in english, I said yea all my songs are in english. Lets see if we can put it to latin music and that’s when the Boogaloo was starting. We took my lirycs and melody, he did the Boogaloo arrangements and recorded an album called In the heart of Spanish Harlem.

ED: Was Joe Bataan in there?

BM: I’m glad you mention that, shortly after that I met a guy who was the manager of two young bands. One of them was Joe Bataan and the other one was Willie Colon; his name was Gorge, I forgot his last name.

ED: George Castro? Because George Castro was playing with Eddie Palmieri la Perfecta, I think he was the flute player.

BM: I don’t think he was a musician.

ED: No! I might be mistaken.

BM: Who knows, he might be. All I remember a guy named George he had these two kids that had their own orchestra. We are talking about 1967, and the hit at that time was Boogaloo Blues of Johnny Colon and the young latino kids loved it. I saw Joe Bataan playing and I fell in love with his sound because he had a song called Gypsy Woman. I found out that they were both recording for Al Santiago who by that time he sold his Alegre Record label.

ED: To who?

BM: To Roulette Records who now own Tico and Alegre, later on in years Fania bought them. So it went from Tico being the big label to Alegre to later on Fania took over after that RMM, right now there is no controlling label, Latin Cool is gong to be the next controlling label. But I’m getting ahead of my self, so getting back to the day of Joe Bataan I went to see Al and I said, Al I thought you sold your record label and he said no I formed a new label called Futura records in fact we are recording tonight we are finishing up Willie Colon’s album and it was the first Willie Colon album that came out of Fania.

ED: Do you remember the name of that record?

BM: I remember the song that we were recording that night, Jazzy; in fact I sing coro on Jazzy. That’s when I got my first experience producing, I sat next to Al Santiago and saw everything that he was doing and I said to my self this is what I want to do.

ED: So he’s the one that founded Alegre label?

BM: Alegre he sold it and then founded Futura.

JM: Salsa, they got the name. What was the name of the music when they were playing before?

BM: Musica Movida.

JM: What about Son and Mambo? Because the mambo they call it now is completely different to the mambo I used to hear when I was little in Colombia. Then all the people in New York calling mambo something different, even in Cuba they call mambo something different, that is the music that was recorded by Beny More, Perez Prado.

BM: Tito Puente used to say, Salsa for me is like Ketchup because it was all categorize under one thing which was like Musica Movida then they started calling it mambo when Perez Prado came up because mambo was a dance, the dance they did to musica movida was the mambo. They did the Cha Cha Cha, there was never a clear distinction between music.

ED: Can you tell us about the Night Club in New York, the biggest one the Palladium.

BM: Oh, the Palladium was so special because they had movie actors going there and all celebrities. After the Palladium there was never another place like it, right now the Copacabana is becoming a big place because the new Copacabana just open up and its out of this world, its so huge and they fill it up when they have dances. I notice in the west coast that there is a lot of activities with the music and the dance halls in the night clubs and everybody in dancing to themselves, they could care less who’s playing out there as long its loud and it sound good. I was with a promotion guy Nelson Rodriguez….

ED: Nelson Gonzales was one of the figures of Tipica 73, before that he was a bongo player.

BM: I used Nelson Gonzales in a lot of recording and he was a young kid just like Alfredo de la Fe

ED: One last question, How do you feel about the death of Ramon “Mongo” Santamaria?

BM: I feel very bad about it because I got to know mongo and he was a quiet man, very serious about his music. He never got involved with drugs like everyone else, he was a gentleman and the style that he created with Marty Sheller is going to be forever.

ED: Marty Sheller was a trumpet player too.

BM: yea and there’s a group that send a tape that sounds just like Mongo Santamaria. His sound will always be there and Mongo make his mark.

ED: Muchas gracias por darnos un tiempito.

BM: El placer es mio y gracias por hacer la entrevista en ingles porque mi español esta matado pero para mi, I’m going to say it in english. The next city to explode with latin music is Atlanta, all you need is a few more people like Tomas Algarin, Julian and your self to get the word around and get more radio shows going and Atlanta could be the next Miami.