Miguel Amadeo

Miguel Angel Amadeo, better known as “Mike,” Amadeo was born in Bayamon Puerto Rico in 1943 and is a Puerto Rican musician and owner of the Casa Amadeo music store in The Bronx. He is the son of composter Alberto “Titi” Amadeo, who was a musician who played with Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz for NBC. He is also the uncle of Grammy Award-nominated musician Tito Nieves. Mike Amadeo is also a prolific composer, with nearly 300 songs to his credit, performed by artists such as Celia Cruz, Danny Rivera, and Cheito Gonzalez. In 1954 Amadeo took a trip to Puerto Rico. While there he met pianist Rafael Ithier, who was working for bandleader Rafael Cortijo. When Cortijo's group fell apart, Ithier formed El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico, and Amadeo began contributing music to the Gran Combo. Back in New York City, Amadeo joined Alegre Records, and associated with the first generation of Nuyorican musicians including Johnny Pacheco, Ray Barretto and the brothers Eddie Palmieri, and Charlie Palmieri. With his long residency, and personal connections to the Latin music community, Mike Amadeo is known as a community historian. For his contributions to Puerto Rican music and the Bronx, Mike Amadeo has been honored by the National Puerto Rican Day Parade in 2008, a Hostos Center for the Arts & Culture concert in 2005, and by the Bronx Council on the Arts in 2010. In 2014, the corner of Logwood Avenue and Prospect Avenue was renamed Miguel Angel "Mike" Amadeo Way. Mike Amadeo is also the owner of the oldest, continuously occupied Latin music store in New York City, as it opened in 1941.