Salsa is fusion music, and here's proof: a four-CD box of 1960s and 1970s jams with Willie Colón, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Barretto, Joe Bataan and other genre giants cross-breeding Latin rhythms with Afro-American grooves. Latin purists once dissed the hybrid boogaloo, but today songs like Joe Cuba's semi-rapped Spanglish "Do You Feel It? (¿Tú Lo Sientes?)" sound both fresh and funky, and Palmieri's "Chocolate Ice Cream (Helado de Chocolate)" is a jazzy cha-cha-cha to charm all palates. The disco mixes are occasionally overripe, but as Bronx block-party flashbacks go, it's vivid – you can almost smell the cuchifritos.

Listen To "Do You Feel It? (¿Tú Lo Sientes?)": 

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.