This artist was one of the first to boost Joe Arroyo’s nascent career. In addition, he recorded with The Latin Brothers and won 20 Congos de Oro with the La Verdad orchestra.
If you have listened to songs like Rebelión, I owe everything to my God, Lack of silver, Echao palante, Pal bailando, My Mary, or anyone you choose from the extensive repertoire of Álvaro José Arroyo, el Joe, you have come across the voice of Víctor “Wachy” Meléndez. The most famous gray hair of Colombian tropical music. The man with the maracas who for years danced and chanted on Joe’s left side.
In the best style of the ‘rockstars’ of the 70s, Joe, “Wachy” and the La Verdad orchestra toured 23 countries, recorded 47 productions, alternated stages with the cream and cream of salsa: El Gran Combo, Héctor Lavoe, Celia Cruz, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Andy Montañez and Rubén Blades, among others. They won 18 consecutive Golden Congos at the Barranquilla Carnival Orchestra Festival and two Golden Supercongos, a unique trophy created just for this group.
The story that few know is that it was Meléndez who started the “Centurion of the Night” on the stage. When he was not Joe yet, but rather the voice of a jar from the Nariño neighborhood of Cartagena, “Wachy” (who was only Víctor Meléndez at the time) took him to Tesca, a tolerance zone in the port of Cartagena where El Príncipe was located, a huge brothel – which some say accurately had 102 rooms – where orchestras performed almost daily.
Meléndez was the base singer of this place, from Monday to Monday, and when he happened to alternate with El Club Verde, a brothel next to El Príncipe, he called Álvaro José, who was 14 years old at the time and already in those days flirted with the sauce. He asked permission of Dona Angela, Joe’s mother, and they sang until 3:00 am among whores, rum, and sailors.
He was 29 years old when he started taking little Álvaro José to the Tesca area. Despite the age difference, in these places of carnal love a friendship was born that would last a lifetime. They were together in those directions for a year, enough time for Joe Arroyo to get the hang of the night, then he left for Barranquilla to play with La Protesta. But later on, their paths would rejoin with The Latin Brothers and they sealed their union with La Verdad, where the “Wachy” went down in history as the chorus singer of the so-called sonero de América.
Victor Melendez Padilla
At 81 years old, he remembers that he has sung all his life. He was born with the gift in his throat. His father, Miguel Meléndez, the original “Wachy”, a typographer by trade from whom he borrowed his nickname many years later, would indulge him at Christmas with maracas and guitars. Little Victor enlivened family parties with his voice.
He was born in 1940, in the traditional Torices neighborhood of Cartagena, the cradle of boxers and baseball players, just a few blocks from the Nariño neighborhood, where Álvaro José Arroyo was born and raised. He has lived there all his life, near the Santa Rita market. In this place his three children grew up, his grandchildren, there he has his house and there he plans to die. He is currently working on a song for this site, which he hopes to record soon.
Follow the news of El Espectador on Google NewsOf his children, the only one who inherited his musical gift is Victor Jr. He is a pianist graduated from the University of Fine Arts. Currently he is dedicated to playing with his father in presentations at the Santa Clara hotel. Concerts that were held before the COVID-19 pandemic put the music of so many artists on hold.
Jump to the acetate
At the age of 20 he began his musical career. He started singing boleros here and there in bars in La Heroica. Then he became the main singer of the aforementioned brothels in the tolerance zone of the port of Cartagena, where he was for many years.
His first approach to professional music was with The Latin Brothers, where he sang together with Jairo Murillo and Joe Arroyo on albums such as I found you (1976), Báilame as you want (1977), Suavecito, apretaíto (1978) and En su salsa ( 1979). He was with this group for ten years.
Then, in 1980 he recorded with Joe Arroyo and Víctor ‘El Nene’ del Real a production that was lost in the haze of memory. This recording was made under the name Los Chicos Bravos . Fortunately, a couple of years ago the Spanish label Vampisoul announced the reissue of a portion of the immense Discos Fuentes catalog, where this jewel that tastes of legend was rescued.
(It may interest you: The premature death of “El Nene” del Real)
The lead vocalist on that album was, of course, Víctor Meléndez. After this recording, he adopted his father’s nickname, because according to Mario Rincón his first name had no special sonority and he was renamed “Wachy” Meléndez.
The moment of truth
He was singing in the Rafael Lamadrid and Nando Barrios orchestra when one night Joe Arroyo arrived at Donde Guido, a Estadero in Bocagrande, and told him that he needed to accompany him on a project he was putting together. He didn’t think twice and a couple of weeks later he was in Medellín recording at Discos Fuentes.
In 1981 Joe Arroyo y La Verdad was officially born, which included nine musicians from the coast and two from the interior, with “Wachy” Meléndez in the backing vocals.
This decade of glory started with a lot of pain. Arroyo came and went among the bazuco. In 1983 he was considered dead due to the mixture between his addiction and hyperthyroidism that complicated everything. “Wachy” was present in all those moments with the artist’s family, when no one gave a peso for him, literally.
Meléndez’s role in the orchestra was iconic. His image was an insignia of The Truth. He once recounted that Joe Arroyo asked him not to paint his gray hair because that was the way the orchestra was identified in the crowd. And so it was, where the old man with the white head was, there was The Truth.
“Wachy” Meléndez was by his side through thick and thin for 26 years, but not until the end. In 2006, five years before Joe Arroyo’s death, he left the orchestra and there was even a labor lawsuit, which was never resolved.
Episode on tv
In 2012, “Wachy” was submitted to the Caracol Televisión’s La Voz Colombia contest. He chose coach Carlos Vives and was eliminated in the second round. He says that his luck would have been different if Andrés Cepeda had turned his chair around, as he had thought from the beginning.
He returned to Cartagena with his head held high and his “tough skin” to continue doing what he does best: singing and dancing salsa. He was with La Nómina del Pin, with Pin Ojeda, a timpanist from Arroyo, and is currently with the Chelito de Castro orchestra, the pianist who was immortalized in Rebelión .
“‘Wachy’ is an institution in Colombian tropical music,” said Andrés Cepeda, and he’s right.
* From the Color Foundation of Colombia.