Tite Curet Alonso

The most prolific and influential composer in salsa history, who wrote well over a thousand songs that gave the Fania era its social conscience and...

Catalino 'Tite' Curet Alonso (1926-2003), born in Guayama, Puerto Rico, combined work as a postal worker and sports journalist with songwriting, composing roughly two thousand songs including some 200 hits. He pioneered a 'salsa with a conscience' addressing social themes, love and Blackness across the Caribbean. His compositions were recorded by virtually every major salsa voice — Cheo Feliciano, Héctor Lavoe, Ismael Rivera, Celia Cruz, La Lupe, Willie Colón, Rubén Blades and Roberto Roena among them. Honored with a state funeral and a statue in San Juan, he is remembered as salsa's poet and chronicler of the pueblo.

Role

composer, lyricist, journalist

Era

Fania-Era Salsa

Genre

Salsa (Fania era)

Origin

Guayama, Puerto Rico