FANIA ANNOUNCES THE RELEASE OF A DELUXE 2-DISC 30-TRACK BOX SET OF THE LEGENDARY TITO RODRIGUEZ

Fania Records announces the release of a deluxe 2-disc, 30-track box set of the greatest of the mambo kings, Tito Rodriguez scheduled for November 3, 2009. Tito Rodríguez: A Man and His Music El Inolvidable includes some of the legendary singer/bandleader’s greatest numbers, including his career-defining hit “Mama Güela,” as well as “Blen, Blen, Blen,” “Cara de Payaso,” and many others.

With the best musicians in New York City (including on some tracks the legendary bassist Cachao and pianist / arranger René Hernández), the sheer quality of this timeless music will remind longtime fans of his astonishing work and will also attract a new generation of listeners. This compilation, selected by the well-known New York discographer Harry Sepúlveda, focuses on years when Rodríguez’s dance band starred at the legendary Palladium (where many of the tracks were recorded), as well as the high points of his mega-successful international career as a chart-topping singer of romantic songs.

Born in Puerto Rico, Tito Rodríguez came to New York as a teenager in the 1930’s.  After stints singing with a number of top groups he formed the Tito Rodriguez Orchestra, the most danceable band in the dance-fever era.  It was built around the voice of its leader, a versatile interpreter of every style of music who went out singing. In 1973, suffering from cancer at the age of fifty, he was rushed to the hospital after leaving the stage from a headline appearance at Madison Square Garden and died days later.  Although he passed away, his legacy continues to burn bright through his recorded music as showcased on this new release.

These tracks have been digitally remastered from the original master tapes. The deluxe set includes a 32-page booklet with extensive liner notes in English and Spanish, never-seen photos, and the album covers of Rodríguez’s great recordings. The set joins The Man and His Music series that has featured such artists as Celia Cruz, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colón and Rubén Blades, all on the Fania label, whose catalog Código Music recently acquired. Tito Rodríguez: The Man and His Music is the first release in this series from Código Music.

In the last year, Código Music has acquired both the West Side Latino and Fania catalogs, giving it the greatest repertoire in Tropical Music, comprising more than four thousand albums by the masters of the genre.  Today Fania is home to more than 200 of the top artists’ catalogs in Tropical music.   These artists mixed a cornucopia of styles that transcended the boundaries of traditional Latin music and set the path for the genres of Latin Big Band, Afro-Cuban Jazz, Boogaloo, Salsa and Latin R&B.  They include Beny Moré, Sonora Matancera, Orquesta Aragón, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, Tito Rodrguez, Ray Barretto, Cortijo, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colon, Johnny Pacheco, Joe Cuba, Larry Harlow and Ruben Blades to mention a few. The more than 4,000 albums from the 1940s through the 1980s have been carefully documented, archived and placed in a special media storage facility for original recorded media. Codigo Music has been working in partnership with New York-based music journal Wax Poetics, it has been carrying out a major archival and databasing project of the musical and non-musical assets from these essential catalogs.   In addition, Fania has been remastering and reissueing these treasures in digital format, original remastered CDs, box sets and vinyl.