Ray Barretto: Acid [FANIA]

Why you'll love it

Craft Recordings Latino cut this edition with all-analogue (AAA) mastering from the original tapes, on 180g vinyl in a heavyweight tip-on jacket. Acid fuses Latin soul, boogaloo, salsa, funk, Afro-Cuban rhythm and jazz, with salsa greats Adalberto Santiago, Orestes Vilató and Bobby Rodriguez in the band.

This edition

• AAA mastering from the original tapes
• 180g vinyl
• Tip-on jacket
• Made in the USA
• Remastered

About the album

Ray Barretto was already a star before he got to Fania. The Brooklyn-born percussionist, raised in Spanish Harlem and the Bronx, had a pachanga smash with "El Watusi" in 1962. Acid, his first album for the label, is where he pulled everything he loved into one place.

Producers Harvey Averne and Jerry Masucci gave him room to roam. "El Nuevo Barretto" announces the new direction with a hard Latin groove, "Mercy Mercy Baby" and "A Deeper Shade Of Soul" are boogaloo with a big soul heart, and the title track is a long, spacious descarga that lets the band stretch. "The Soul Drummers" puts the percussion section front and centre, and "Espiritu Libre" closes the album. Adalberto Santiago sings, with Roberto Rodriguez and Louis Cruz in the lineup alongside Vilató and Bobby Rodriguez.

Barretto went on to become a pillar of the Fania All-Stars and one of the leading lights of what came to be called salsa. Acid is where that run began; it sounds like a party that knows exactly where it's going, which is more than can be said for most of ours.

Also at Kops: more Ray Barretto on vinyl · browse World

Tracklist

Listen

On Fania / Craft Recordings Latino (cat# CR00997), a reissue of the 1968 album.