Hector Casanova was, for more than 30 years, one of Johnny Pacheco's orchestra's leading singers as well as a soloist on various recordings of his own:  "Casanova" (1980), "Casanova, Montuno y las Muchachas" (1983), "Solido" (1986), y "...Y sigue el Montuno" (1998).  Additionally, he musically accompanied many other famous artists such as Africando, Los Soneros de Oriente, Cuban Masters, Gilberto Santa Rosa, Herman Olivera, Cheo Feliciano, Ismael Miranda, Jose Alberto "El Canario," Michael Stuart, Tito Rojas, Adalberto Santago, Johnny Ventura and Ray Viera, as well as being one of the top billed singers for The Fania All Stars.  His brilliant career, sadly, came to an end on Thursday, May 17, 2007, due to a fatal illness.

Originally from Marianao, a suburb of Havana, Cuba, Hector was born on November 19, 1944.  He began singing in a school chorus from a very early age and together with his cousins, had "a little group" that performed on street corners and at dances. 

In 1962 when Hector was 15, he and his family emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts.  One year later, they moved to New York City where he lived most of his life.

He owed his first musical experience to a vibraphonist in Brooklyn, Lalo Olivera, who had a small orchestra called "La Neoyorquina Seven Go," a sextet that with Hector, made it seven.  With Lalo's orchestra, Casanova began a long and illustrious singing career performing at weddings, baptisms and even burials.

Later, Casanova sang with an infinite number of orchestras, such as "Dicupe," "Tambo", "Ritmo Tropical de Cuba" (today known as Conjunto Modelo) and "Monguito" until joining Johnny Pacheco's orchestra in 1975, thus creating a friendship that lasted until his death.

Casanova recorded three consecutive albums with Pacheco: "El Maestro" (1975), "El Artista" (1977) and "Los Amigos" (1979) until 1980, when Pacheco distanced himself from music.  Casanova decided to form his own orchestra and named it "Casanova y su Montuno."  His most recent musical collaboration was "El Alacran" (2005) for one of his closest friends, the Dominican singer Santiago Ceron.

In 2004, Casanova was diagnosed with brain cancer, which was determined to be malignant after surgery on December 13 of that same year.  After that delicate operation and intensive therapy, he began to develop blood clots, which produced gangrene in his left leg.  His leg could not be saved and subsequently had to be amputated. 

After that difficult period, Hector was released from the hospital, free of the cancer that plagued him and still full of passion for his music, he began to travel and sing again with the help of a prosthetic leg.  While planning to release a new recording with Pacheco, Hector's cancer returned aggressively, attacking his entire body and reaching his lungs, which is why his doctors gave him little time left.

For this reason, many of his friends decided to pay homage to Hector in Los Angeles, Miami and New York in order to provide financial support to his wife of 37 years, Maria "Maruja" Figueroa.  Hector spent his last days at the Guild Home for the Blind in Yonkers, New York.