Harlow Times

New York City. folks I am home again; not for long though. Puerto Rico is soooooooo beautiful. I just can’t get enough of that Island, like Japan. This time I was locked in E1212 studios in Puerto Nuevo, Puerto Rico recording and mixing two new projects. The first one is called Noche Caliente 4…for Caiman Records of Miami, Florida. It features the vocals of Tito Allen, Darvel Garcia and Lefty Perez. The Noche Caliente series started in 1985 by José Silva, who had an idea of putting hit balladas into salsa/dance tempos. This was the start of the SALSA ROMANTICA crave. The late Louie Ramirez produced the first two and I did the third for a label called K-Tel. José Silva who is now head of Caiman bought up the old masters and re-released them. The reaction was so good he decided to do a new one. This is it ...Tito Allen an excellent vocalist who phrases his lyrics to the max, sang two from the old cd's, brings all of his emotions and is his sonero traits into the studio. It is always a pleasure to do studio projects with Tito Allen. Another excellent studio musician that recorded on this project was Darvel Garcia. For the past few years Darvel has been a backup vocalist for Jerry Rivera. Darvel also has three CDs under his belt stays pretty busy in Puerto Rico. He has a beautiful baritone voice, which contrasts well against Tito's. Lefty Perez, a Caiman artist, does a good job on his two songs arranged by Luis Cruz, who did some arranging on the Legends CD. Lefty is a young sonero with a lot of potential. After mixing and mastering this CD on Friday Jan 23^rd. I started the next project...SOMOS LA FUERZA LATINA…a tribute to Roberto Clemente. This was the idea of my son, Myles Harlow 212-228-8222 who’s a sports and entertainment attorney here in NY. We were to write, arrange and record nine songs about baseball and/or Roberto Clemente; Bring in Major league Latino baseball players to play, sing, and record. One song kind of like "we are the world" with everyone singing and make a video in a joint venture with Major league Baseball Films. We invited and sent plane tickets to Renteria, Galaraga, Lima, Cora, Williams, Baerga, Hernandez, Sierra, Visquel, Bonilla, Igor, Ivan, Sandy, Delgado, Martinez etc etc etc etc. Some were committed to other things these days, but many said YES...Luis Clemente, Roberto's son helped in arranging hotel rooms, and transportation. We recorded basic tracks, then horn tracks, then coro tracks. All the lead singers arrived Tito Allen, Ismael Miranda, Andy Montañez, Angel Ramirez (Barrio Boyz-NY), Chocolate (Venezulan Rapper), Lefty Perez (Miami), Edal Borrero (-NY), and Wichy Camacho(PR). There was a TV recording crew in place and guess what...NOT ONE MAJOR LEAGUE PLAYER showed up. We made the video with the help of Tony Perez...a truly great person, who came to honor the memory of Roberto Clemente, who he played against and with many occasions. This is when one really finds out who is who. I thank him mucho Dennis Martinez, from Nicaragua, when Roberto died trying to take food to that country, said "I HAVE NO TIME FOR THIS" was already in San Juan playing ball...What a joke this man? Baerga and Ruben Sierra made several appointments to record. However, they never showed or called...What Balls they have I guess when you make 6 million dollars a year you do not have any time to honor the man (ROBERTO CLEMENTE) who made it possible for Latinos to make the kind of money they are enjoying. Anyway, the CD is a smash.

I recorded and mixed it all in 13 days…all really great material for RYKOLATIN. RYKOLATIN is a new company from Philadelphia, who is trying to enter into the Latino market. They have signed and recorded Jimmy Bosch and Plena Libre from Puerto Rico and are issuing some Cuban recordings.