Sonora Ponceña

Formed in 1954 in Puerto Rico, the ensemble La Sonora Ponceña quickly rose to become one of the most popular tropical acts ever when local musicians Enrique Lucca Caraballo and Antonio Santaella—both previously active in the 1944 group El Conjunto Internacional—launched the project. The band’s debut single appeared in 1958, pairing “No Puede Ser” with “Tan Linda Que Era,” and the musicians delivered their first United States performance in New York City during September 1960. By 1968, after pianist Enrique Lucca Quiñonez, Jr., known as Papo and the son of Caraballo, joined the lineup, La Sonora Ponceña recorded its inaugural album, Hacheros Pa' un Palo, which spotlighted the Latin classic “Amor Verdadero.”