she had a son. That marriage also ended in divorce. Lupe's passionate performances covered the range of music: son montuno, bolero, boogaloo, venturing into other Caribbean styles like Dominican merengue, Puerto Rican bomba and plena. It was her recordings which brought Tite Curet Alonso into prominence as a composer of tough-minded boleros in the salsa style. For a good part of the 1960s she was the most acclaimed Latin singer in New York City due to her partnership with Tito Puente. She did a wide variety of cover versions in either Spanish or accented English, including "Yesterday", "Dominique" by The Singing Nun, "Twist & Shout", "Unchained Melody", "Fever" and "America" from West Side Story. Fred Weinberg, who was her favorite audio engineer, and also worked with Celia Cruz, Mongo Santamaria, Tito Puente, and many more of the Latin American greats, and a producer on several of Lupe's albums, called La Lupe "A talent hurricane" in the studio due to her intense singing and enthusiasm. The quality of her performances became increasingly inconsistent. There were persistent rumors of her drug addiction and her life was "a real earthquake" according to statements of close friends, although Fred Weinberg, who engineered, and also produced a vast amount of her albums, stated that "In all the years I worked with Lupe, not once did I ever see her on drugs, or using drugs...Heck, she never even drank liquor due to her strong belief in religion." She ended some of her on-stage engagements being treated with an oxygen mask. Although she may have been poorly managed by her label Fania Records in particular, she managed and produced herself in mid-career, after she parted ways with Tito Puente. However, in the late 1960s her ephemeral career went downhill. The explosion of salsa and the arrival of Celia Cruz to New York were the determining factors that sent her into the background and her career declined thereafter. La Lupe was part of the cast of Two Gentleman of Verona with Raul Julia at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park which moved to Broadway in December 1971. Later years and death A devout follower of Santería, she continued to practice her religion. Her record label Fania Records (which had previously acquired Tico) ended her contract in the late 1970s, keen to instead promote Celia Cruz's career. La Lupe retired in 1980, and found herself destitute by the early