Frankie Ruiz

On August 9, 1998, salsa lost one of its best singers, Frankie Ruiz, to health problems in the liver related, according to various sources, to the AIDS virus. He was one of the first to sing in salsa’s sensual style and has played an important role in the resurrection of salsa’s popularity in the seventies.

A native from Patterson, New Jersey, Ruiz began singing at an early age. He was still a child when he made his first recording with Charlie López and his orchestra. After moving to Puerto Rico with his mother in 1965, he fell in love with the music played by a popular salsa band, La Solución. Due to the fact that he attended all of the group’s performances that he could, he quickly learned the band’s repertoire. Although his mother implored musical director Roberto Rivera to try him out, Ruiz was not taken seriously until the lead singer of the orchestra was unable to make it to a performance at a local night club.

Frankie was asked if he wanted to replace the singer for a night and Ruiz impressed the band so much that he was invited to become a full time member of the band. He was with the group for three years. In the early seventies he left La Solución and accepted an invitation to join Tommy Olivencia’s orchestra. During the three years he spent with the group he made his biggest hit, "La Duda". Ruiz embarked on his solo career in the mid-eighties. Despite his obvious talent for singing, Ruiz was ruined by drug and alcohol dependency and a constant yearning for life on the edge.

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