La Lupe - "Love is so fine" (The Queen does her own thing, 1969)

Produced by Harvey Averne
Arrangements by Martin Sheller
Engineer: Freddy Weinberg
SHE WOLF -- Who's the wildest female singer in the world? Wrong! The wildest female singer in the world is La Lupe--she wolf, I'm told. I'm also told that she is a Cuban exile, but afeter having seen her rip into about two hours of music last Saturday at a Latin dance on West 73rd Street I have a notion that the exile may not only have been for political reasons. I had heard of her vaguely before, and when I saw La Lupe posters plastered all over the 72nd Street IRT station, I decided do make it to the Riverside Plaza.
At the ticket booth I flashed my 1967 VV card but was told by the local muscle that American press was not being honored. I grabbed my wife's hand at that and stormed off (which often works), but nobody tried to stop me. Just at the exit, a friendly caught my arm and commiserated. All of a sudden he yelled, «Catch ther. That's La Lupe!» Next thing I knew I was talking to the Queen of Latin music and was riding up the back elevator with her to the grand ballroom. This lady is sexy. I could describe her, but it would make me nervous.
Disembarking with her entourage, we were hit by a barrage of cheers like something out of the Super Bowl Game. There must have been more than 1000 Dominicans, Cubans, and Puerto Ricans packed into the dancing space and no table spots left, a middle-aged Dominicano and his wife offered us a chair for our coats and went on dancing in the aisles. All ages were there, from eight years old to what looked like 70, and they were all dancing. I looked for Americans all night and found two probables. When La Lupe came on, the place caved in. A teenager grabbed our chair and jumped onto our coats to see better. We pushed our way up front. Dancing stopped. Papiro, the conga player, took off, and one of the most powerful high trumpet players in popular music tore into a song, and La Lupe started shouting.
She is Janis, Aretha, and Edith Piaf tied into one. She flew around the stage between notes and arrived at the mike right on time. She sings ballads like Piaf-plus, and up-tempos like the other two--plus madness. I heard from a friend that she was banned from San Juan tv, because she ripped off her clothes once while in the throes of singing. As she sang, she waved colored magician's scarves, beat time on the timbales player's head at one point, and began tearing at the jacket of her white pants suit. Yet, aside from a flat pitch or two, she didn't drop a note.
Pieces came and went, each one more driving that the one before. Voodoo was all I could think of, even when she was singing an American r&b tune. She could make a fortune on the rock scene.
La Lupe--she's devastating, and she seems to be devastating herself. When we left at 2 a.m., she was flat on the floor of the bandstand, cradling the microphone--but swinging every note. Jim Morrison take note.
-- Carman Moore, «The Village Voice»

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