Marc Anthony said no to salsa before becoming its biggest seller
When a record boss offered Marc Anthony a salsa album, the young New York club singer turned him down. Then, riding in a taxi, he heard a Juan Gabriel ballad on the radio and changed his mind. He asked to record it as salsa, and that decision launched the best-selling career the genre has ever had.
He was born Marco Antonio Muñiz in Manhattan in 1968, the youngest of eight children of Puerto Rican parents, and grew up in East Harlem. His parents named him after a Mexican singer, which is why he later adopted a stage name to avoid confusion. His father, a hospital cafeteria worker and professional guitarist, taught him to sing in Spanish and English. At home he heard everything from Air Supply to Héctor Lavoe and Rubén Blades, and Tito Puente became a lifelong influence.
His career started in dance music, not salsa. He sang sessions for freestyle and underground house records and wrote songs for other acts, working with the producers Little Louie Vega and Todd Terry. His first album, in 1988, was a freestyle record. In 1992 he and Vega opened for Tito Puente at Madison Square Garden, and after that he moved into Latin music. The taxi epiphany led to Otra Nota in 1993, and a tour supporting Blades made him one of salsa's rising names.
What set him apart was a salsa sound that borrowed from the rhythm and blues and house music of his New York youth. Y Hubo Alguien became the first salsa song to reach number one on the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks, and he began selling out Madison Square Garden himself. In 1999 he crossed over with an English album whose single I Need to Know reached the US top five; the record eventually went triple platinum.
He holds the Guinness record as the best-selling tropical and salsa artist and has had more number ones on the Latin Tropical Airplay chart than anyone, 32 in all. He has also acted, appearing in Martin Scorsese's Bringing Out the Dead and opposite Denzel Washington in Man on Fire. By 2014 his album sales had passed 12 million.
Source: Marc Anthony
