Salsa music legend Willie Colón and his wife were involved in an accident in their motor home on North Carolina's Outer Banks.
The Bronx-born senior salsa star and social activist who helped pioneer Latin music in the 1970's at Fania Records, is currently being treated at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital following a motor home crash on North Carolina's Outer Banks.
He had serious head trauma with a concussion, lacerations to his scalp. Colon required 16 staples and fractures to his C1 cervical vertebra, the statement read. He is in serious but stable condition and is being taken to NY Presbyterian for further treatment.
Willie's formal music education began when his grandmother gave him a trumpet and paid for lessons when he was 12. He shifted his focus to trombone at age 14, and when he was 17, he made his recording debut with El malo 1967; “The Bad One”. The album was an early example of the New York sound, a trombone-driven movement in Latin music that fused Caribbean rhythms and arrangements with lyrical popular music styles.
Willie Colón has been running for office numerous times in New York City and is been a vocal critic of the Venezuelan government.
