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do I what? how did I start? I started my musical career when I was born
I I grew up as a child
living on a right off Prospect Avenue
on 161st street right behind a theater called
the a adio
no no no this was a a big theater they used to have Vaudeville there
you know what Vaudeville and they had entertainer
entertainers come every week a
I'll give you the name in a minute but a right off Prospect Avenue
right near the subway and all that so
I used to go to the theater all the time and and
and see different singers and and listen to the radio
I was singing songs by Carlos Gardel when I was four and five years
old and we're talking about 1939 1940
and I used to have the ability to go and see these
singers in the movies sing and entertain people
and be able to remember the whole melody and the words
so that was an attribute that helped me a lot to
to just to remember lyrics sometimes I forget them though
so the the point is that the I I
was singing and also dancing the Puerto Ricans were all in the Bronx at that
time
my family came in 1920 because they
my father my father was from Vieques and in Vieques what they did is that they came
came in and took the people
off different areas for the Army in the Navy
so where the Navy was and they had the Naval base
was the property of my family and it was all farmland they used to have farms
and so they came in the nineteen twenties my grandfather stayed in Puerto Rico but
my father and and his brothers and sisters came here
and they got into different types of careers
but as far as getting into the music I started
as a singer in a dancer at the age of
5 I went to the original Paramount theater in Manhattan and I saw
a young man by the name of Frank Sinatra singing surrounded by
thousands of bobby socksers that was a group of young ladies that wore certain types of
shoes and socks bobbie socks so
I said to myself oh my God this is wonderful it was very impressive
the theater was black and all a sudden
you have a a light go down to the middle and there's Frank Sinatra and he was
singing
night and day you are the one ooooh everybody went crazy
so that was my inspiration him
and Bing Crosby and I love these guys and
I was involved spiritually and mentally
in that type of music but also the Puerto Ricans in
in New York used to get together on on weekends
for house parties there was no nightclubs or things like there were later
and uh so I learned how to dance in the house
there was no mambo and they didn't call it mambo at the time but there was
guaracha rumba conga
you know that was exciting and later later down the years when I got into
music
the chacha and the mambo came out very strong