Willie Colon and Hector Lavoe – Crime Pays

Eight years after its creation, Fania Records had accumulated such a sizable catalog of artists that it began to issue compilations from its roster of hit-making stars such as Willie Colón, Larry Harlow, Johnny Pacheco, and Ray Barretto. In fact, Crime Pays was the first anthology the label put out in 1972.

The ironically titled Crime Pays was a comment on the success of Colón’s carefully cultivated bad guy image that he sustained until the mid-1970s. The anthology compiles nine key cuts from his first four albums. His 1967 debut album El Malo (The Bad Guy) is represented by his first hit, the mambo jazz instrumental Jazzy and the title track, a bomba-guaguancó composed by Colón. Jazzy was co-penned by Colón and his African-American pianist Dwight Brewster and bassist James Taylor. The album’s recording director, Fania co-founder Johnny Pacheco, bought Héctor Lavoe in to sing lead vocals. According to Brewster’s biography, Lavoe initially shared the view of older musicians that Colón’s was a kiddie band, but it was only after he heard the playback of “Jazzy” and two Colón/Brewster tunes that he changed his mind and agreed to join. Lavoe was to remain until Colón gave up his band in 1974.

Colón’s follow-up, The Hustler (1968), is represented by “Guajirón,” composed by Brewster’s replacement on piano, Mark “Markolino” Dimond, also African-American, Que Lio, a guajira co-written by Joe Cuba, Lavoe, and Colón, and the boogaloo “Eso Se Baila Así” penned by Colón. Dimond takes one of his elegant trademark solos on “Guajirón.” A brilliantly talented yet tragic figure, Dimond, who was already a drug addict at the time of The Hustler, dropped out of the New York recording scene in the mid-1970s and died in the 1980s, leaving a small yet masterful legacy of recorded work mostly for the Fania family of labels. Colón takes an effective trombone solo on “Que Lio.”

“Guisando” and “El Titán,” both co-written by Colón and Lavoe, originate from Colón’s third Fania outing Guisando – Doing A Job ( 1969). Though un-credited, this was Dimond’s last recording with Colón before he commenced an ill-fated career as a bandleader. Other un-credited personnel on the album included Charlie Cotto on timbales, Santi González on bass, Chucky López on bongo, and Barry Rogers on trombone with Justo Betancourt and Pacheco doing the first of many coro duos for Colón’s albums.

“Che Che Colé” and “Juana Peña” are taken from Colón’s fourth Fania release Cosa Nuestra (Our Thing; 1970), his first album to go gold. “Che Che Colé,” adapted by Colón from a Ghanaian children’s song, was his biggest hit up to that point and catapulted him into superstardom. “What really made the tune fun was Héctor’s humorous Spanish (language) interpretations of the coro,” comments Ray Rosado, leader of Maña, who knew Colón in the early days and continued to follow his career. “Juana Peña” was another Colón/Lavoe composition.