Honoring Pop and His Palace of Latin Soul in the Bronx
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| One December night in 1948, a boy in the Bronx fell in love with a song. He was 14 and new to New York, and as he walked by a music store on Prospect Avenue, the strains of a Los Romanceros holiday tune, "Aires de Navidad," drew him inside. It reminded him of home, in Bayamón, Puerto Rico. So he took the 78 r.p.m. record for a test spin in a listening booth in the corner. Fifty-seven years later, he has never really left. | ||||
 Suzanne DeCillo/The New York Times Miguel Angel Amadeo, 71, composer and owner of a Latin music mecca in the South Bronx. "This guy has just contributed too much," one admirer said. |
Miguel Angel Amadeo, who bought the record - his first, for 75 cents - returned in November 1969 and bought the store. Over the years, he transformed Casa Amadeo from record shop to cultural institution, establishing the tiny store at 786 Prospect Avenue in the South Bronx as the place to go for hard-to-find albums, for history lessons on Latin music and for simple conversation. On a visit to Casa Amadeo, you might bump into Ray Barretto, a famous conga player; José E. Serrano, the Bronx Democratic congressman; or Antonio Montero, 48, an electrician with Local 3. You could buy a set of made-in-Colombia maracas emblazoned with the Puerto Rican flag or an $11.95 copy of an old Cheito Gonzalez compact disc, noteworthy because the title track, "Me Marcharé Llorando" ("I Will Leave Crying"), was written by Mr. Amadeo himself, one of dozens of his songs that have been recorded by Latin artists. "The ones we pay attention to are the ones who rake in millions of dollars and who stay in our public conscience," Mr. Serrano said. "But neighborhoods have people who are really stars in their own right, and they never get the attention they deserve. "The name of the festivities - Que Me Lo Den en Vida (Give It to Me in Life) - comes from a salsa number written by Mr. Amadeo, who is known to many as Mike. The song was Mr. Amadeo's way of saying, essentially, that one cannot hear applause in a coffin. "This is like a cry, telling the people, you know, don't wait until I'm dead to go to a cemetery and say, 'Amadeo was a great guy,' " said Mr. Amadeo, 71. "If you're going to do that, do it now."(read more) |
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