‘I Can See’: Ralfi Pagan’s Gorgeous And Heartbreaking Soul Ballads
He may have been signed to Latin music powerhouse Fania Records, but Ralfi Pagan was a soul singer at heart.
Ralfi Pagan was a beautiful anomaly within Latin music powerhouse Fania Records’ late ’60s/early ’70s roster. Blessed with a gorgeous, airy falsetto tenor, Pagan was more musically aligned with the sensitive soul balladry of his obvious role model Smokey Robinson than the salsa dura erupting out of East Harlem and his native Bronx. His early recordings reflected as much, moving tentatively between English and Spanish-sung soul slowies and dance numbers. But with his 1971 hit cover of Bread’s “Make It With You,” he found his niche – emphasizing the song’s forlorn romantic longing, rather than seduction, and ecstatically vamping in Spanish on the outro to seal the deal.
The song was a crossover smash, and the remainder of Pagan’s career at Fania would see the label attempt to repeat its success – even re-releasing “Make It With You’s” accompanying album, With Love, sans its Latin tracks and subbing in older soul numbers. 1973’s Ralfi awkwardly moved him towards singer-songwriter territory. But 1975’s I Can See gets the musical calculus nearly perfect. As its title and dramatic cover design suggest, it’s a focused effort (just eight songs) that returns Pagan to his chief strength, the heartbreaking soul ballad.
Listen to Ralfi Pagan’s I Can See now.
It also reunites Pagan with producer Marty Sheller, whose arrangements made With Love’s soul tracks such standouts. From the first notes of the opening Smokey Robinson cover, backed by a who’s-who of top studio players, everything feels just right. Drummer Bernard “Pretty” Purdie and bassist Jerry Jemmott (both veterans of Aretha Franklin’s touring group) lock into a sultry groove accented by Nicky Marrero’s bongos and Frank Malabe’s congas. Louie Ramirez’s vibraphone lines shimmer, and guitarist Joe Beck’s wah-wah adds just the right touch of blue light basement friction. For his part, Pagan’s breathy, reverb-bathed performance is a study in exquisite vulnerability that would do Smokey proud. Throughout I Can See, he’s further buoyed by sumptuous backup harmonies from veteran producer/songwriters J.R. Bailey (of his own cult classic soul LP Just Me and You fame), Kenneth Williams, and Mel Kent.
It’s a brilliant template that yields uniformly sublime results on “Just For a Little While” (as in “I never knew that when you said ‘I love you’ it was…”), the Bailey/Williams/Kent-penned “Loneliest Loneliness,” and an outstanding cover of Cholly Rivera’s late ’60s single “I Could Never Hurt You Girl.” The latter features a brief call-and-response adlib between Pagan and Bailey that speaks to the attention to detail herein. Even two down-tempo funk-infused tracks, “La Vida” and “Rat Race,” work well; Beck’s guitar builds sonic continuity while Pagan turns his attention from matters of the heart to broader philosophical and societal concerns.
Despite its obvious musical merits, I Can See stalled commercially and would be Pagan’s final LP for Fania. He would continue to record for other labels and relocate to Los Angeles, where his Latin soul sound was beloved by Chicano audiences. But tragically, his life and career ended far too soon. While touring Colombia in 1978, he was murdered under circumstances that have long been the subject of speculation and rumor. Knowing this, one can’t help but experience I Can See as something even more profound: haunting.
