Danny Rivera
 You may listen to Rivera's interpretation of Lola Rodriguez de Tio's version of the "La Borinqueña" here on YouTube. |
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and to Rivera's interpretation of Eladio Torres' "Tu vives en mi Pensamiento" here on YouTube
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Danny Rivera (born February 27, 1945) is a singer and songwriter who was born in San Juan whose career spans nearly 50 years. He is well known in Puerto Rico for his political activism. In 2008, Rivera acquired the Dominican Republic citizenship. After 12 years of work Danny Rivera and Nelson González in 2014 finished work putting new life into the classical bolero - in Spanish. Latin Luminaries Danny Rivera and Nelson González Hit the Heart of the Latin American Song Book on Obsesión (Release March 25, 2014)
Danny Rivera is often called “the national voice of Puerto Rico,” but his magnificent, passionate way of singing is known all over the Spanish-speaking world. In Latin America, he has been a familiar face on television since 1968. Over the course of a career that reaches its fiftieth year in 2015, Rivera has recorded over seventy albums and is the only Puerto Rican to star at Carnegie Hall in four different decades (1979, 1989, 1999, 2010).
Danny Rivera was born of humble origins in one of the deepest Afro-Rican culture zones—Santurce, Puerto Rico, the home of many of the island’s most popular musicians and now part of the modern metropolitan area of San Juan. Born on February 27, 1945 in the neighborhood of 23 abajo, named for one of the stops on a now-defunct trolley line, his first experiences with singing were in the chorus of an evangelical church and in the bars of his neighborhood, and with the barriles (barrel drums) of the streetside bomba that is Puerto Rico’s strongest link to the era of plantation slavery.
He made his first professional impression as a big-band singer in 1968, in the Hotel San Juan with César Concepción’s orchestra, the finest of its day. Televised music festivals are important talent showcases in Latin America, and after Danny was chosen as Revelation of the Year in the 1968 Popularity Festival, he became a familiar face in Puerto Rico through television appearances. With a repertoire that emphasized the bolero and looked to progressive song movements, he was an emblematic figure of the bohemia of the 70s that based itself at the nightclub in Viejo San Juan called Ocho Puertas (Eight Doors).
After making his recording debut in 1968 (“Amor, Amor,” with a group called the Clean Cuts), he began a string of hits that included "Porque yo te amo," "Fuiste mía un verano," "Manolo," "Mi viejo," "Yo y la rosa," and "Va cayendo una lágrima." In 1971 he had a superhit with a version of Roberto Carlos’s "Jesucristo," followed up the next year with his album Mi Hijo, which included two of his career-defining songs, “Tu pueblo es mi pueblo” and “Amada amante.” For years after that, he recorded and concertized constantly, becoming an international star while maintaining a presence on Puerto Rican radio and TV.
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Wikipedia