The grandmother, the mother, the worker, the student, the intellectual, the professional, the unemployed, everybody identified with the songs because they were descriptions of life in the city.

I think being born in Panama was a blessing because Panama is a port city. It's a really - the mentality is that - I remember that of admitting things in. You know, ports, ideas come in and out all the time.

I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mother sang.

I was never particularly a part of the following of tango; I just liked it... most of all, I recognized that the urban content and the approach seemed very familiar and very connected to the songs that I was doing, the kind of songs that I wanted to write - the songs about the street.

Tango was very popular in Panama at the time when I was growing up. In the Fifties in Panama, the radio stations played all types of music.

And, he'd seen me in Panama, and he talked about maybe doing something in New York so I hooked it up when I came here and I recorded in 1969 my first album with Pete Rodriguez.