Joe Bataan

Free RSVP

Opening Set from MeloDious

Festival favorite Joe Bataan, a Latin music legend since the mid-1960s, returns to the Gardens for his third performance in the past four years. He made an indelible mark as one of the early stars of Fania Records with a seductive combination of doo-wop vocals and boogaloo, one of the era’s defining sounds. Born Bataan Nitollano to a Filipino father and African-American mother and raised in Spanish Harlem, he is the father of the Latin soul sound, crooning hits like “Gypsy Woman” and “Ordinary Guy.” But Bataan never stayed in one groove for long. He…