About Me
Victor Hugo loves his music passionately. No wonder he displays so much emotion in the
interpretation of each one of his songs.
Victor is one of the prominent voices of today's salsa, a trend of tropical music that he has humbly helped to define. He looks at his albums as an opportunity to combine his most intimate feelings with the powerful delivery of his voice, to this extent, we can confirm that Salsa P’a America, Victor's new release, finds him once again, giving of himself musically in an array of very danceable tunes."Salsa Pa'America" (America is his baby daughter) is the title of the album and summarizes what the whole album is about, Salsa with love.
It includes tunes in the different sounds of salsa that exist today: romantic, street and traditional-“All of them with a fast-paced percussion rhythms and a lot of swing," says Victor, who grew up listening and performing street salsa. Victor has always been the kind of musician who likes to reinvent his music; mixing, experimenting and giving a new musical essence to his already popular sound.
All of that is accomplished in this album by working closely with Grammy Award winners ! Son de Cali and Julio Cortez, the musical director of Victor's band for the last five years. Victor adds; “Julio and I really complement each other. We have always worked and communicated very well. I admire his ability when it comes to playing the piano, directing music and more importantly, and his commitment to keeping the Victor Hugo sound unique. This album represents what our relationship is all about, hard work and excellent team work."
Their chemistry also helped to establish the high quality of the twelve tracks included in Salsa P’a America.
The eleventh track "Viva La Salsa," is a message from Victor and special guest artist, Kike Harvey, to their native land. Victor also features a remake of a song recorded ten years ago by himself entitled, "La Nena". “Sigo Esperando†is the opening track of the album this track is dancers gold arranged by Leo Aguirre.
Victor says: “’Havanera’ track ten, is the most street salsa song of the whole album." Today, the Caracas-born singer is a soloist with five albums of his own, recorded on LAS Records UK, and his solid reputation as a vocalist.
But for Victor, as for so many other performers, the road to success has not been easy. As a boy he learnt from his mother Maria Luisa Toro, a bolero singer and soap actress. He also listened to the Venezuelan, Puerto Rican and Cuban performers who fed his desire to become like them, some day.
At the age of 18, having emigrated to London, he had his first experience as a vocalist, singing with a band called King Salsa, later with another called La Clave. He shared the stage with Piano virtuoso Charlie Palmieri in London and was asked to replace Hector Lavoe by Palmieri on a short tour.
This was a turning point for Victor and he began to sing for a living; with his own group 'Victor Hugo con Picante'One of his first recordings ‘Salsa con Samba’ included a couple of his own compositions Victor performs in this album alongside such stars as piano player Chucho Valdez from Cuba and Chocolate Armenteros form Puerto Rico.He went on to record another three albums with his own band, one album entitled
‘Oye Latino’ that became an anthem to Latinos away from home in world wide; a second called "Tropicalisimo" had tracks featured in the motion picture 'Janice Beard' as well as world-wide Bacardi advert called 'Available behind bars'. This boosted Victor’s hunger to succeed as a recording artist.
A third album entitled 'Latinoamerica' was recorded in Germany with the help of yet another piano virtuoso, Armin Keil, who had been successfully writing for Cano Extremera and Conexion Latina in Germany.
Victor Hugo slowed down his singing professionally to care for his family and work as a
Music Producer and photographer. During this period of his life, Victor did a few gigs as singer for some popular local bands. The right moment to come back happened when he met Julio Cortez who played piano with Grupo Niche from Colombia on tour in London. Julio offered to join Victor on the recording of a new album that Victor had been planning.
The title of this new album was 'El Niche soy yo'. This album changed Victor's style and
thanks to the success of "El Niche soy yo" and of "Cada Vez" Victor Hugo established himself as a singer with the proven ability to generate hits.
"This is the first time that I had the opportunity to work with members of Grammy Award winners 'Son de Cali', they influenced me and in a way created the Victor Hugo new style," he says.Don’t miss the forthcoming album “Que Pasa†What’s Up- being cooked in the Victor Hugo Salsa kitchen; due for release in summer 2006.
