Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz

Puerto Rican salsa/boogaloo duo Richie Ray & Bobby Cruz was formed in New York in 1964. Composed of Richie Ray (born Ricardo Morales on February 15, 1945, in Brooklyn, New York) and Bobby Cruz (born Robert Cruz Ramos on February 2, 1937, in Hormigueros, Puerto Rico), the duo was instrumental in popularizing salsa music in the 1960s and 1970s. The duo came together in 1964 when Bobby Cruz joined Richie Ray’s orchestra as a backing vocalist. Within a few years, Bobby Cruz was the group’s lead vocalist and took his place right up front with bandleader Richie Ray. The duo’s first high profile release for this musical union was the 1966 album Ricardo Ray Introduces Bobby Cruz a Go Go. In 1968, Bobby Cruz’s English lyrics on the single “Mr. Trumpet Man” helped the song become a hit. The duo was extremely popular in Latin America and the United States between 1965 and 1974. Their most popular early albums include Jala Jala y Boogaloo (1967), Agúzate (1970), and El Bestial Sonido de Ricardo Ray y Bobby Cruz (1971). Their sudden conversion to Evangelicalism in ’74 surprised fans and had a negative effect on the duo’s popularity. They continued releasing religious album over the next 20 years but finally called it quits in the early 1990s. They reunited in 1999 and have continued to spread the Word through concert performances and albums.