Object Details
- Exhibition Label
- Born New York City
- Called “the King of Latin Soul,” Joe Bataan was born to an African American mother and Filipino father and raised in Spanish Harlem. He began his musical career singing do-wop on street corners in the 1950s. By the late 1960s, he had developed a style that combined Latin music with rhythm and blues. With his first hit song, “Gypsy Woman,” recorded in 1967 for La Fania Records, he became the first artist to be credited with creating Latin soul music, a blend of mambo and pop with R&B and Latin jazz. When Latin soul faded in the 1970s, he joined the Disco mania and had a big 1979 hit with “Rap-O, Clap-O,” the first rap Disco hit. In this publicity image from 1965, Bataan appears seated but commanding, surrounded by his Latin Swingers band.
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Artist
- Unidentified Artist
- Sitter
- Joe Bataan, born 1942
- Date
- 1965
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Joe Bataan
- Medium
- Gelatin silver print
- Dimensions
- Image: 19.1 x 24.2 cm (7 1/2 x 9 1/2")
- Sheet: 20.2 x 25.4 cm (7 15/16 x 10")
- Type
- Photograph
