Artist:Salsa Celtica
Song:El Sol de la Noche
Album:El Agua De La Vida
Salsa Celtica is a salsa band that happens to be from Scotland. Anyone expecting them to be a salsa version of Red Hot Chilli Pipers will be disappointed because they are a standard salsa band with occasional use of bagpipes and other Celtic instruments. Trumpeter Toby Shippey was playing Edinburgh clubs when he got the idea to form a salsa band. He visited Cuba to investigate further. When he returned, he formed Salsa Celtica and they self released a couple of albums. They toured England, Scotland and Ireland and also played the US folk festival circuit. For the 2003 album El Agua de La Vida, Salsa Celtica signed with the Celtic music label Greentrax with Compass handling US distribution. They do not record traditional salsa. Shippey writes most of the songs with co-writers. He wrote El Sol de la Noche with jazz pianist Roland Perrin who plays on the song. The album was produced by Jim Sutherland. The lead singer is Cuban Ricardo Fernandez Pompa. The other lead singer is Venezuelan Lino Rocha. This album is available on CD. Shippey has another band called Grupo Magnetico. They had a residency in Edinburgh and released an album in 2018. Salsa Celtica released an album last year. So they are still around but my guess is band membership is very fluid. Here's Salsa Celtica performing El Sol de la Noche at the Helsinki Festival Aug. 30, 2014.

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