Celia Cruz

My package was shipped as fast as Celia Cruz moves on the dance floor. Thanks!

This is one of the CD that really moves people who loved Celia. Her voice is so young and strong, amazing interpretation.

... there are a lot of common tracks with the CD Celia Cruz (Cuban Legend). Otherwise, a Must Buy.

In this colection you have the opportunity to hear Celia Cruz as a young vocalist and you will instantly understand why she is considered such a legend. Due to the age of some of the recordings the sound quality is not the best but SHE is so good it doesn't matter.

This album is great. It shows Celia's voice young and crisp. I loved her energy and kindness towards others. We will miss Celia.

This album takes you back in time. It shows why Cuban music is so awesome and why it is loved worldwide.

This is my first Celia Cruz CD and I absolutely love it and highly recommend it.

As usual ANYTHING sung by Celia is absoultely awesome...and I especially like this album...I will purchase for my collection.....AZUCAR!!!

This CD is just a collection of evidence that shows why CC is the undisputed queen of Latin music. You will not be dissappointed

This CD mixes the best of both worlds, the politically driven and life experiences of Celia with a dance groove. Made me listen to it for a hours!!!

I have been looking for "La Vida Es Un Carnaval" for 6 years. First, forgot the author; second, forgot the title.

...My mexican friends helped me to recognize that song and than I decided to buy several items of hers.

...Than I found HITS MIX by Celia Cruz on AMAZON. Maybe I expected a little bit more but ...That it is still my MEXICAN favourite music

Celia Cruz and Friends: A Night of Salsa We'll never forget Celia Cruz! Wonderful CD

THIS CD ROCKS!!! Recorded live at Lincoln Center in 1999. If you missed this concert, fear not. Just listen to this CD and you're there. My favorites are La Dicha Mia, Quimbara and Bemba Colora. The colaborations with the Great Tito Puente, La India(her god-daughter) and the fabulous Johnny Pacheco are genius, just like her. This CD is a total spirit lifter. You'll want to take Salsa dance lessons just to keep up. To be able to achieve the feeling of actually being there live on a CD is a total gift. Very well engineered.

Incredible CD, her voice sounds like a trumpet singing with a deep, warm and colorfull sound, with precission and feeling.

I like the version of "Mi vida es cantar" .. was amazing...

Very good CD!

I was disappointed. The CD doesn't have the type of Salsa music that would make me want to dance. Bummed.

MUY BUEN DISCO GRABADO EN VIVO. CELIA SEGUIRA SIENDO LA DUEÑA Y SEÑORA DE LA SALSA!

This fell short of my expectations big time. Listened to it once and resold it quickly. I probably didn't get the album I was looking for but thought this one was it. Good music for those who like it. Both artists were supreme entertainers and I have other albums of the Fania Allstars and they are on fire :D

This recording is a classic! If you buy it, play it LOUD! This is one of Celia Cruz's best, Johnny Pacheco's groove plus Celia's voice, PERFECTION! Warning, it will make you dance! If I could, I'd rate it 10 stars!

I second the earlier reviewer's assessment of "Celia & Johnny": Undoubtedly the best collaboration to come out of this artistic coupling and perhaps Fania Records. Under Pacheco's prescient direction and all star cast of Fania legends, notably Papo Lucca, Bobby Valentin, Roberto Roena, and the late Ray Barretto to name a few, Celia and Johnny stew a potent potpourri of classic hard driving salsa that leaves one short of breath, especially after listening to Canto A La Habana. This song strips you of any inhibitions and propels you to the dance floor regardless of your dancing skills or retention of lyrics. Here is where La Guarachera de Cuba best exemplifies her amazing vocal talents and ability to improvise between repeated chorus lines. Quimbara, perhaps the most widely covered on this recording is a showcase of vocal dexterity and virtuosity. It is Celia's driving vocals and bewitched enthusiasm that inspires the musicians into a pitched frenzy resulting in some of the best playing ever put down on track by any assembled group of salsa artists. Celia Cruz skillfully sails above an intimidating rhythm section filled by equal parts extraordinary musicianship and superegos; a piece of cake for her. Listening to this maiden call by Celia Cruz and Johnny Pacheco you can feel the camaraderie and unabated pleasure these artists shared while recording alongside this unique and wonderful sonera during a very special moment in recording history.

Celia rose early on in her long career to the very summit of her craft. Surrounded by the ranks of Beny Moré, Tito Gomez, Vicentico Valdes, Bobby Capo, Tito Rodriguez, Celino Gonzalez, Mirta Silva, Miguel Matamoros, Celeste Mendoza, Miguelito Cuní, Los Compadres, Tito Puente, Ismael Rivera, Abelardo Barroso, Olga Guillot, and Roberto Faz among many more, she was able to transcend each one as well as the era in which they triumphed. She was equally comfortable with a new generation of artists among them Justo Betancourt, Héctor Lavoe, Jose Alberto, Rubén Blades, Ismael Miranda, Oscar De Leon, Willy Chirino, Albita, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Ismael Quintana, Pete "El Conde" Rodriguez, Adalberto Santiago, Bobby Cruz, and Cheo Feliciano, each equally in awe of her legendary status and magnanimity.

In Luna Vieja, Celia again demonstrates to perhaps a new following of fans that she was equally adept at boleros as she was at guarachas, bombas, and rumbas. Toro Matari, El Tumbao y Celia, a favorite of mine because of the way it builds into a pitch of soneo vocalization rooted en la harmonia del blanco con el ritmo del negro. There is not a single song on this audio CD that will let you down and in fact if you learn to listen and appreciate the artistry from both vocalist and musicians alike, you will come to agree that this is one of the best recordings ever made by Latin music artists. Throughout all the songs on this recording you feel Cuba down to the cobblestones of La Habana as well as the rhythmic blends and arrangements of New York City, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo.

Lest we forget, it is the great and legendary Johnny Pacheco who lends his infectious tumbao and conjunto tipico arrangements to this classic recording, and who also masterfully brews his special cup of dos de café y dos de azúcar to help draw out the best of this brand of Cuban music. Johnny Pacheco is equal parts band leader, businessman, founder, musician, composer, producer and, A&R man. Under Johnny Pacheco's musical husbandry, a new vintage of legendary performer is delivered to listeners new and old alike. I'd easily argue that it is this series of recordings between Celia and Johnny that brings out some of the very best recorded performances by Celia Cruz. Pacheco would go on to record several more audio CDs with Celia as lead vocals and for this we are all the better.

I just picked this up and if you don't have it, get it - classic. It is probably Celia's best album overall and Pacheco lays down the money groove throughout. This music dances, cooks, and puts you in a happy place. Trust me. This is money well spent my friend. Azucar!

The New York Times said it all: "What really shines through on [this] remastered record is extraordinary musicianship. Albums like 'Celia & Johnny' ... are the essence of classic salsa: tough, gleaming, unstoppable dance music, with brass fanfares braying over crackling syncopation from claves, timbales and congas."

eMusica, who purchased the Fania catalogue, has done the world a true service by reissuing these lovingly remastered salsa classics.

The incomparable Celia Cruz only gets better with her age, if that's even possible for the Latin Queen of Rhythm. Her expressive boleros are as much acoustically seductive as they are technically musical. High quality recording. Very enjoyable. A must for all Latin music lovers.

This is the first salsa or any similar CD that I've ever purchased. It's not music that had previously spoken to me for personal listening.

But I couldn't get Celia Cruz's haunting Te Busco out of my mind. Even though I heard it only years before in the closing sequence of the exceptional Australian film, Lantana. When a clip appeared on youtube, I was a goner, and felt compelled to purchase the album.

This has become a favorite CD. I play it often.

Now, years later, I'm an intermediate Spanish student and I had to try to translate Te Busco. I couldn't listen now without knowing this song of so obvious longing and memory. I really got stuck on one of the verses and posted it to a Spanish/English forum.

"No wonder you are confused about 'me roban formas de tu rostro'," a native of Spain wrote back. "This song is kind of a poem. It's full with metaphors and allegories."

And, this comment on youtube: "Excelente cinta [Lantana], el final con Celia Cruz (rip) cantando no pudo ser mejor, totalmente melancólico."

I ordered this album thinking that I was going to relive the music that in my childhood I had listened in family parties and saw my parents dance (when there was a lighter spring in their step.) I was not wrong! From the very first cut " Nostalgia de Palmeras" to very last note in this album there is nothing but a sequence of memories. Some good some bad, but all in all this album is a journey into memories held dear by my heart and they define me as well as many other forty somethings. More objectively I can say that if you are a latino, or at least a Spanish speaking Anglo, the beauty of the lirics,- sometimes coy, at times romantic and often unabashedly elegant- offer an experience defined every bit by the clarion of her voice as by the beauty of orchestration. In the the remastering process all of it comes through with three dimensional qualities. Celia's interpretations compiled in this album are from different moments in her career. You can actually appreciative that in spite of the passage of time her voice got stronger, sharper and never, never lost that magic of inflexion and nuance that makes every song uniquely hers. Celia was and still is a phenomenon in music very much like Edith Piaf, Nana Mouskury, Judy Garland, Roberta Flack,Tina Turner, Barbara Streisand, Pat LaBelle, and Judy Collins. Celia certainly lead a less tempestuous life compared to some of the lives of these Divas. Nonetheless she had her own share of suffering and yearning. Suffering and yearning that she used to fuel her artistry in a positive and creative manner that kept her always relevant and in demand. Along decades Celia poured her heart into her singing, without vanity or self-serving egotism. Every ounce of her honesty and unusual craft as an artist remains in history through many recordings. This one is certainly not an exception.

This second 1975 Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco collaboration originally released on Vaya Records is an ABSOLUTE CLASSIC salsa Cd that yielded SO MANY BIG HITS, that NO serious salsa fan should be without it!
Tres Días De Carnaval and La Sopa En Botella (2 tunes that she sang in the 1950's with Rogelio Martinez's Sonora Matancera) were the biggest hits from this album, although songs like the opener Cúcala, Rico Changüí (which she also did in the 1950's with Sonora Matancera) or Dime Si Llegué A Tiempo were almost as popular, if not as big as the 1st two songs I've already mentioned!...

Then, if you take into count HOW GOOD, LOVELY, BEAUTIFUL and MUSICAL the version of Oriza Eh featured in this album is (DEFINITELY one of my favourite songs from this Cd), and how good Catalino Curet Alonso's De La Verdegué tune is, or the Johnny Pacheco 'penned' Merengue tune at the end No Aguanto Más, or even the song Ni Hablar (also with a properly realistic, and obvious lyrical message), it's 99% of the album's content which is SIMPLY OUTSTANDING! (The only song I don't listen to is the Bolero No Me Hables De Amor.)

One of the best moments of this album (for me) is when Enrique 'Papo' Lucca (Director, Leader & Pianist of Sonora Ponceña) takes his famous solo of Piano on La Sopa En Botella, then Celia encourages Papo and Luis Mangual just after on Bongo as he also starts riffing for a few little bars and then the GREAT Trumpet arrangement "reprise" wraps the moment a bit suddenly, but still with GREAT musical class and SHEER genius!... Wow! That whole musical sequence is quite amazing and the arrangements are also SO SO good! That's definitely one of "MY" highlights of the album, but actually, this whole album is FULL of great arrangements all over it from Louie Ramirez on the mighty great Tres Dias De Carnaval, Ni Hablar, and De La Verdegué; from `Papo' Lucca on the IMMORTALS Cúcala and La Sopa En Botella; from Bass player Roberto 'Bobby' Valentín on the GREAT Oriza Eh, and Rico Changui; from Felipe Yanes on the Bolero and on Dime Si Llegué A Tiempo; and from Johnny Pacheco himself, on the Merengue No Aguanto Más, and apparently, he doesn't like Merengues!...


This is DEFINITELY an album that could EASILY get anyone who doesn't listen to salsa, into salsa, and one that is also very joyous and festive, and that could get ANYONE who likes dancing "in the dancefloor", as ALL the songs are VERY HIGHLY DANCEABLE and pretty rhythmical!...

Other perfect ingredients for a Cd like this one is the joy in many possible ways that Celia Cruz could give in a recording or wherever she used to go, and also her general vocal performance throughout this whole album!
Once again, without exception, she was at the height of the event!...
After all she has done, she can DEFINITELY rest in peace (except for some issues to do with Cuban Politics that have bothered her...)

Make sure that you get ALL the Celia Cruz & Johnny Pacheco Vaya Series like their very first 1974 Celia & Johnny Cd with (Quimbara, Toro Mata, Tengo El Iddé, Canto A La Habana, and Ño Mercedes...), their 3rd 1976 Collaboration Celia, Johnny, Justo & Papo 'Recordando El Ayer' (both now available remastered), their 1978 Celia Cruz-Johnny Pacheco 'Eternos', the Celia, Johnny & Pete from 1980, and then they did one more Celia Cruz/Johnny Pacheco titled: 'De Nuevo' from 1986, which is still good, but not quite as good as the previous ones...



Remastered By: Miami Tape, sound Quality: 9/10. EXCELLENT Volume, EXCELLENT sharpness with a couple of sharp Bass lines at times and an original recording PROPERLY respected; the way a Cd like this one deserves to be remastered! Fiuf!... (We NEVER know what to expect!...)

Their second album together, Celia and Johnny recorded probably their most popular album.
In my opinion their hit "Cucala" still being played in latin radio stations everywhere was the crown jewel of this classic album. Simply unforgettable.

This 1975 release was their second project together and includes the big hits "Cucala", "Rico Changui", "Tres Dias De Carnaval" and "La Sopa En Botella". Both this album and 1974's "Celia and Johnny" revived Celia's career and made her a superstar again. No serious salsa fan should be without these two CDs.

Fast fun salsa. I loved the earthy tone of her voice and the various rhythms mixed in.

This was a replacement to my previously bought cd. I wore it out. I love it so much. I will give me pleasure for years to come. Rest in Peace Celia Cruz. I will see you in the great ballroom in the sky.

Ella Tiene Fuego es lo mas caliente. Whenever I play it in my car, I wish I had those massive subwoofers in my trunk like most of my friends down in Mexico.. I know it's salsa, but everytime I hear it it takes me back to the yard parties we had in Sonora, where we parked one of the cars in the driveway, opened all the doors, popped the trunk (to let those subwoofers free,) cranked the Norteno, and cumbia'ed our toocanas off.

You know what I'm saying.

I mean, Celia isn't Los Hurricanos del Norte, but in this album she's found that same Latin club bass layered in brass that just slams you onto the floor and makes you bailar como un gringo loco.. Cuba, Sonora, what's the differance? If it makes you dance, it's all good.

This is a great CD with lots of songs that I love to blast in the car and dance to. You won't regret it.

Celia Cruz was taken from us far too soon, but her extraordinary talent will live on forever. She never gave in to trends, and remained tru to her musical roots right up to the end of her life. Sadly she will be missed, but her incredible way of interpreting a song will never be matched by any other entertainer as far as I'm concerned. She broke all musical barriers, and did Salsa the way it should be heard--in all its rawness. Never one to sell out, Celia's music will be a forever existing inspiration to us all.

I love this CD. Every single song that's on this CD you will know.

Even though I have most of these tracks on other cds I still bought this one. The songs are classics. If you are just starting to collect salsa, you should buy this cd. No library would be complete without Celia Cruz, she is truly missed!

Este disco es EXCELENTE, TODAS las canciones som muy buenas y conocidas, es una seleccion de las mejores canciones nuevas y antiguas y tiene una cancion, que al comienzo no note, pero cuando me di cuenta que existia , el disco se convirtio en LO MAXIMO, para todos los CUBANOS del EXILIO es un MUST HAVE this CD MUY RECOMENDADO, no se arrepentiran