A Salsa Legacy: Remembering Willie Colón, a Founding Father of Salsa Music
By: Olivia Woloz
Willie Colón, one of the greatest influences of salsa music, passed away on Saturday Feb. 21, 2026 at the age of 75 years old. Colón was an exemplary trombonist, singer, and composer who worked alongside “Siembra” with Rubén Blades to release one of the best-selling salsa albums of all time. He was both an activist and musician who helped cultivate Nuyorican salsa and whose history has spanned the Billboard charts for the past 40 years.
Born and raised in the South Bronx in the 1950s, Colón was brought up by his Puerto Rican grandmother who helped motivate him musically and inspire his career. By the mid 1960s, he became an outstanding trombonist and an inspirational leader for other young people during a contentious political era. Many of the big-band sounds Colón created influenced the future of American pop, funk, and rock with aspects of R&B and Caribbean music becoming a parallel to salsa music. He recorded his first album, “El Malo,” at 17 years old which included the voice of Puerto Rican singer, Héctor Lavoe, advancing his career by a milestone.
During the 1970s, Colón recorded his live album Fania All Stars at the Cheetah at a concert in New York City with famed musicians Larry Harlow, Johnny Pacheco, and Bobby Valentín. After the performance, salsa music skyrocketed internationally. The artists dedicated their popular sounds to the greats: Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Ricardo Ray and Bobby Cruz. Throughout the rest of Colón’s career, he gained 20 charted titles and seven top 10’s for Top Tropical Albums. Willie Colón lived a full and inspiring life and his legacy will live on in both salsa and music history.
