Oye Cómo Va: History and Key Facts

"Oye Cómo Va" is a 1962 cha-cha-chá song by Tito Puente, originally released on El Rey Bravo (Tico Records). The song achieved worldwide popularity when it was covered by American rock group Santana for their 1970 album Abraxas. This version was released as a single in 1971, reaching number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100, number 11 on the Billboard Easy Listening survey, and number 32 on the R&B chart. The block chord ostinato pattern that repeats throughout the song was most likely borrowed by Puente from Cachao's 1957 mambo "Chanchullo", which was recorded by Puente in 1959.

The song has been praised by critics and inducted into the Latin Grammy Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2002. Due to its multinational origins–Cuban, Puerto Rican and American–and its many versions by artists from all over the world, "Oye Cómo Va" has come to represent "the interconnectedness, hybridity and transnationality" of Latin music in the United States.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from Oye Cómo Va by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.