50 years makes a difference

On Saturday I took the subway to Madison Square Garden in New York City to attend a concert celebrating Polito Vega's 50 years as "El Rey de Radio" (the King of Radio). Vega was honored for his half-century on the airwaves with a two-day concert series organized by two radio stations, WPAT and WSKQ. The evening featured a star-studded Latin music lineup, with artists like Gilberto Santa Rosa, Víctor Manuelle, Millie Quesada, Olga Tañón, Oscar de León, José Alberto "El Canario," India, and Tito El Bambino.

Polito Vega, 71, was born and raised in la Playa de Ponce, Puerto Rico, and journeyed to New York in the late 1950s to launch a singing career. Instead, Vega found himself on radio beginning in 1958, and became a historic figure in American music by popularizing the Latin sound along the East Coast and beyond.

Fans of I Love Lucy, featuring Cuban-born Desi Arnaz, might recall an era in music when Latin sounds were being introduced to the American mainstream through television, movies, and jazz. In the mid-1960s, Vega was one of the first radio personalities in United States to identify and ally himself with the commercial potential of the musical style that came to be known as salsa.

In 1964, when "The Motown of Latin Music," Fania Records, was launched, salsa music exploded in the United States and the Caribbean, and Vega found himself in the middle of music history as the most prominent salsa DJ in the world. Vega can still be heard on WSKQ, Mega 97.9, playing classic Latin favorites on weekends from noon until 8 p.m. Vega's radio programs are also syndicated and can be heard throughout the United States and in the Caribbean.

While the music at the Madison Square Garden event was spectacular, I found myself returning to the realization that these types of celebrations will not be in America's future, because gone are the days when people will have 50-year careers in one vocation. Those in my generation were not raised to think that way. When I see men like Vega and the impact he has had in the music industry, I wonder what is lost when Gen-Xers and Millennials continue to spend three to five years, on average, pursuing every new career "opportunity."