A Tribute to “los Hermanos Lebron”
Between 1992 and 2001, I went through a big Salsa fever. I was in love with this genre; the dramatic lyrics and the rhythm were fascinating to me. I felt it in my blood, and I still do – I’m Colombian, so what can you expect. During those years I gathered a great collection of old school Salsa songs. My favorite groups where: La Fania all star, Celia Cruz, Hector Lavoe, Willie Colon and off course Fruco y sus Tesos.
With time, I grew out of this phase, but now and then I go back to my roots. Lately, I have been listening to some salsa music, and I must say that my old-time favorite song is called “La Temperatura” by The Lebron Brothers (Los Hermanos Lebron).
Since this is one of my favorite songs I decided to do some research and find more about The Lebron Brothers.
The Lebron Brother o los Hermanos Lebron were a famous New York band with Puerto Rican origins created at the end of the 1960’s. They were famous for mixing African sounds with Caribbean Soul, and Rhythm and Blues creating a style called Funky blues. The members were Pablo, Angel, Jose, Frankie and Carlos Lebron.
Their fist album was released in 1967 titled Psychodelic goes latin: The Lebrón Brothers Orchestra that had songs in English and Spanish. The album was a great hit and in 1968 they released their second album The Brooklyn Bums and in 1969 I Believe y Brother was released.
In 1970’s the boogaloo started to lose fans and they decided to release and album entirely in Spanish. Salsa y Control is one of the most important salsa albums in history. This album has Jazz and R&B influences, that gave a unique sound to the band. The Lebron brothers were the first ones to use the word Salsa. Everything that was known as son, mambo, guaracha o guaganco at that time, was renamed to salsa.
In 1981 Pablo,the vocalist, suffered a stroke and had to leave the band. The Lebron Brothers retired from show business for 4 years and came back in 1985.
“La temperatura” in one of my favorite songs, I love not only the rhythm of the song but its lyrics and specially the way it is sang. You can feel how sad he is for not being able to be with the woman he loves…pure poetry.
Enjoy!
Listen to this 