June 30th 1993. I remember clearly…I was enjoying a beautiful, warm and sunny day in New York City. On the corner of Hart street and Wilson avenue in the Latino-heavy Bushwick section of Brooklyn I stood, basking in all of the glories that came with being young, healthy and alive.

I must have been leaning up against the gate of the corner “bodega” for at least an hour straight. I’m quite sure it was more. I was taking in “the view”, or in less cryptic terms, watching some of New York’s finest female specimen walk up, down, then back up the block. This activity still makes perfect sense to most New Yorkers.

I have to focus from this point on...I have to concentrate in order to properly recount an event, a moment in my life, that for myself as a human being, has defined the word “ungrateful” to this day...

It was thirst that compelled me to pivot on my feet and walk into the store to purchase the cure for my ailment: Cola-champagne. The “usual suspects” were all present in the store: my father’s silver-haired peers, cigarette in one hand…beer in the other. Nothing was dissimilar from any other day…except the mood. It was in that store, on my way out, that I encountered a newspaper headline that barely had an effect on me at the time: “Muere Hector Lavoe: El Cantante De Los Cantantes.”

I remember thinking that my parents would be very saddened by his passing. I, however, was for the most part unaffected. Make no mistake, I was acutely aware of who Hector Lavoe was. His music was, for the most part, the soundtrack of my childhood…the melodies that fueled our family parties and get-togethers. The boom-box outings at the beach, parks and barbecues, where different groups competed to play his music the loudest. Those were happy times. Beautiful times that 'promised' to last forever. Unfortunately they hadn't, and Hector Lavoe, the musical genius who helped enchant all of those beautiful days and nights growing up was now gone as well.

In the months immediately following his death, Hector’s music began to speak to me. His music was no longer “background noise” to a child, it was now a direct communication to a man. It spoke of pain, of sadness…of happiness, triumphs and defeats in the form of a song. The stories and the life of a man. Poetry amplified, not just by the lyrics in his music, but by the emotion, the timber in his voice. To hear and feel Hector Lavoe’s music is to understand that his soul is trapped in every song, reaching out with every chorus. To actually LISTEN to his compositions, is to be in the very presence of his life-weary spirit.

Hector Lavoe once sang: “Si no me quieren en vida, cuando muera no me lloren”…a request I will forever deny him. Although I am guilty of not realizing the full extent of his talents while he walked this earth, I am forever “grateful” for the legacy of his musical accomplishments, for the deluge of feelings that overwhelm me every time I am inspired by his poetic and often prophetic words.

This site is dedicated to the life and legend of Hector Lavoe, as a tribute to his music and as a testament to his genius and to all of his fans throughout the world, who both miss and admire his brilliance. Oye Hector, tu herencia nunca sera “un periodico de ayer.” Rest well Jibarito.

Hector Torres
www.HectorLavoe.com