[Cover photo of Celia Cruz courtesy of Craft Latino]
Craft Latino is celebrating the centennial of Celia Cruz with a year-long celebration. Throughout 2025, “The Queen of Salsa” will be honored with a series of vinyl and digital reissues, playlists, video content and more. To kick off the celebration, the album Son con guaguancó will return to vinyl for the first time since its 1966 release and debut on hi-res digital platforms. Recorded shortly before the singer found global fame, the album “showcases Cruz’s versatility as an artist, while speaking to her experience as an immigrant in the U.S.”
Arriving March 7th, 2025, the album features “Bemba colorá,” plus favorites like “Oye mi consejo,” “Se me perdió la cartera” and the title track, “Son con guaguancó.” The LP was mastered from its original analog tapes by Clint Holley at Well Made Music, pressed on 180-gram vinyl and housed in a replica of its classic jacket.
Music collectors can also find a “Bemba Colorá Red” 180-gram color vinyl variant (limited to 300 copies), with a bundle option that includes a Tico Records T-shirt, at Fania.com. Additionally, Son con guaguancó will make its debut across digital platforms in 192/24 hi-res audio.
An internationally beloved singer, whose five-decade-long career spanned a multitude of styles and eras, Celia Cruz (1925–2003) lives on as one of Latin music’s most revered icons. Born in Havana with a passion for music, Cruz sang, studied her craft and performed at every opportunity throughout her youth. Her big break arrived in 1950 when she joined the long-running popular group La Sonora Matancera. With the band, Cruz found stardom across Latin America, thanks to high-profile tours, hit records and several cameos in films. But in 1960, amid the Cuban Revolution, everything changed.
Cruz left her country, first relocating to Mexico City, where she had an established following, and then settling in New York City. While Cruz continued to perform with La Sonora Matancera for several years after moving to the U.S., the singer (known then as “The Guarachera of Cuba”) soon embarked on a solo career, releasing Cuba y Puerto Rico son…, her first of many collaborative albums with bandleader Tito Puente, in 1966. Months later, she made her official solo debut with Son con guaguancó.
While Son con guaguancó saw respectable sales, it would pale in comparison to her later titles. In the years following her debut, Cruz’s profile skyrocketed. With the rise of salsa in the ’70s, Cruz dominated the Latin charts, scoring several Gold records and countless hits, beginning with 1974’s Celia & Johnny, her first of several collaborative titles alongside Fania Records co-founder Johnny Pacheco.
Cruz, who passed away in 2003 at the age of 77, remains one of the most popular Latin singers of the 20th century. Throughout the years, the seven-time Grammy winner has been honored with numerous awards, exhibits, commemorative stamps, samples by major artists and tributes, including a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a National Medal of the Arts, a Smithsonian Lifetime Achievement Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (1987) and inductions into the Billboard Latin Music Hall of Fame (1994) and the International Latin Music Hall of Fame (1999), among others. Last year, Cruz became the first Afro-Latina to appear on U.S. currency through the American Women’s Quarter Program.
