Acid
Ray Barretto
Acid is the debut album by Brooklyn-born conguero and bandleader Ray Barretto for Fania Records, recorded at RCA Studios in 1967 and released in 1968. Produced by Harvey Averne with Jerry Masucci as executive producer — it was Masucci who suggested the provocative title — the eight-track, thirty-five-minute record arrived at a pivotal crossroads in New York Latin music, capturing the boogaloo craze at its height while simultaneously pointing toward the salsa explosion that would define the following decade. Barretto had spent the preceding years working as a sideman for jazz giants including Charlie Parker, Tito Puente, Cannonball Adderley, Freddie Hubbard, and Dizzy Gillespie, and the eclectic breadth of that experience is embedded throughout Acid's eight tracks. The album features an all-star lineup: vocalist Adalberto Santiago in Spanish, vocalist Pete Bonet in English, trumpeters René Lopez and Roberto Rodriguez, timbalero Orestes Vilató, pianist Louis Cruz, and the Cuban-American bassist Bobby Rodriguez — affectionately dubbed "Big Daddy" by Barretto — whose simple, funky tumbao drives the title track. Crucially, the entire record was captured live in-studio with no overdubs, giving it a spontaneity and physical immediacy that studio-constructed recordings of the era rarely matched.
The album blends Latin soul, funk, Afro-Cuban rhythms, son montuno, and jazz into a sound that Apple Music described as "salsa for the progressive set," noting that Barretto was "acutely aware that his audience was as likely to be grooving to Hendrix and Sly as to Tito Puente and Celia Cruz." The record opens with the high-energy boogaloo of "El Nuevo Barretto" and moves through the punchy soul horns and James Brown-inflected grooves of "A Deeper Shade of Soul," "Soul Drummers," and "Mercy, Mercy Baby," before closing with the eight-minute "Espíritu Libre" — a hypnotic, atmospheric Afro-Cuban jazz excursion that All About Jazz called "the album's most psychedelic soul sounds." Craft Latino has described Acid as "a cornerstone of the Nuyorican boogaloo sound and a seminal title in the evolution of salsa music," and the album's influence has extended well beyond its original era — "A Deeper Shade of Soul" was sampled by Urban Dance Squad on their 1990 debut single, and the title track appeared on the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. In May 2026, Craft Latino issued a wide mono vinyl reissue pressed on 180-gram vinyl from all-analog lacquers cut from the original master tapes.
Acid
Ray Barretto
Acid is the debut album by Brooklyn-born conguero and bandleader Ray Barretto for Fania Records, recorded at RCA Studios in 1967 and released in 1968. Produced by Harvey Averne with Jerry Masucci as executive producer — it was Masucci who suggested the provocative title — the eight-track, thirty-five-minute record arrived at a pivotal crossroads in New York Latin music, capturing the boogaloo craze at its height while simultaneously pointing toward the salsa explosion that would define the following decade. Barretto had spent the preceding years working as a sideman for jazz giants including Charlie Parker, Tito Puente, Cannonball Adderley, Freddie Hubbard, and Dizzy Gillespie, and the eclectic breadth of that experience is embedded throughout Acid's eight tracks. The album features an all-star lineup: vocalist Adalberto Santiago in Spanish, vocalist Pete Bonet in English, trumpeters René Lopez and Roberto Rodriguez, timbalero Orestes Vilató, pianist Louis Cruz, and the Cuban-American bassist Bobby Rodriguez — affectionately dubbed "Big Daddy" by Barretto — whose simple, funky tumbao drives the title track. Crucially, the entire record was captured live in-studio with no overdubs, giving it a spontaneity and physical immediacy that studio-constructed recordings of the era rarely matched.
The album blends Latin soul, funk, Afro-Cuban rhythms, son montuno, and jazz into a sound that Apple Music described as "salsa for the progressive set," noting that Barretto was "acutely aware that his audience was as likely to be grooving to Hendrix and Sly as to Tito Puente and Celia Cruz." The record opens with the high-energy boogaloo of "El Nuevo Barretto" and moves through the punchy soul horns and James Brown-inflected grooves of "A Deeper Shade of Soul," "Soul Drummers," and "Mercy, Mercy Baby," before closing with the eight-minute "Espíritu Libre" — a hypnotic, atmospheric Afro-Cuban jazz excursion that All About Jazz called "the album's most psychedelic soul sounds." Craft Latino has described Acid as "a cornerstone of the Nuyorican boogaloo sound and a seminal title in the evolution of salsa music," and the album's influence has extended well beyond its original era — "A Deeper Shade of Soul" was sampled by Urban Dance Squad on their 1990 debut single, and the title track appeared on the soundtrack to Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories. In May 2026, Craft Latino issued a wide mono vinyl reissue pressed on 180-gram vinyl from all-analog lacquers cut from the original master tapes.