It’s Fania Flashback time! Re-mastered by the legendary Kevin Gray for vinyl and also re-released in hi-res digital on Craft Recordings’ new Latino imprint; chock-full of some of the greatest, most nuanced tunes ever to set fire to a dance floor, La Voz isn’t just a specialist classic. It marks the beginning of the recording career of Nuyorican wonder Héctor Lavoe. Or as he was dubbed after his Ruben Bladés-penned 1978 smash hit, ‘El Cantante’ – ‘The Singer’. Simply put, he is, still, the greatest interpreter of salsa music ever. What a work La Voz was, and remains: produced by the venerable Willie Colón, whose sprawling big band Lavoe had been fronting for a while, La Voz dropped right at the giddy heights of the Johnny Pacheco-co-founded Fania Records label. It’s Lavoe wrapped up in a bow – a gift for lovers of class vocalists with superb diction and the preternatural ability to sing fast and hold long notes, and Afro-Latin music alike.

All the loveliest earworms are here: Lavoe’s signature hit, a freeform cover of Pacheco’s ‘Mi Gente’ (‘My People’), which Marc Anthony covered adequately by comparison in the 2006 biopic El Cantante, jostles for primacy next to ‘El Todopoderoso’ and its delicate but blazing horn intro. Colon’s arrangements are masterful throughout – but the whole thing is a trip.