Guadalupe Victoria Yolí Raymond – aka La Lupe – was a Cuban singer who emigrated from Cuba in the early 60s. (According to Wikipedia, while performing in Havana, she earned fans including Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and Marlon Brando – can’t vouch for any of that). She performed and recorded with Mongo Santamaría, and Tito Puente – those records are hard to find.

Her husband at the time, William Garcia, wrote the original sleeve notes: “HER VOICE . . . One hundred percent soul mixed with tenderness, romance, belding, wistful swinging in her interpretations of boleros, guarachas, Venezuelan Joropo, or the groover boogaloo.”

Yes, that’s an English language boogaloo version of the standard “Fever” (originally recorded by Little Willie John, later adapted famously by Peggy Lee with modified lyrics). La Lupe had already released a version in Spanish on her debut album in 1961.

My copy is the January 2024 Vinyl Me Please Classics reissue, with listening notes by Isabelia Herrera. Herrera writes: “Like many other icons, her story was shrouded in mystery and tragedy, obscured by entanglements of fact an myth. You can try to collect the fragments into some precise, tidy account, or you can accept that they say more about her legacy than any biography could.”