Boogaloo (bugalú in Spanish, sometimes also known as shing-a-ling), was a American style of Latin-influenced dance and music that briefly became a craze in the 1960s. A fusion of Cuban salsa and American rock and roll and soul music, the Boogaloo first became popular among the youth of Cuban and Puerto Rican extraction in New York City, and later scored crossover status, largely thanks to exposure on the popular television show American Bandstand.
Influenced by Latin styles such as mutano, guajira, guaracha, and mambo, and especially by African-American soul, Boogaloo music was mid-tempo, and usually featured a short looping melody and a simple, danceable rhythm. Piano, horns, and latin-style drumming were often featured prominently as were bravura choruses. Boogaloo dance was quirky and free-form. It combined a salsa-like swaying of the hips with simple and repetative but unusual movements of the feet, arms, and upper body.
Boogaloo music burst onto the scene in 1966 with several major hits, most notably the Joe Cuba's "Bang Bang," which sold over one million copies, and Pete Rodriguez's insistent "Do The Boogaloo," with its flamboyant trumpet fanfare. Other Boogaloo hits included Charlie Palmieri's "Boogaloo Mania," Johnny Colon’s "Boogaloo Blues," Rodriguez’s "I Like It Like That," and Hector Rivera’s "At the Party." Boogaloo music and dance were rather fadish, and only hung around for about five years. One of the last Boogaloo hits was the jazzed-up "Boogaloo Lebron" which made the charts for the Lebron Brothers in 1970.
Famous artists such as Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, and Perez Prado dabbled in Boogaloo music at times, but much of the run-of-the-mill Boogaloo was produced by short-lived Latin boy bands, with ridiculous names like The Latin Souls, The Lat-Teens, Pucho and His Latin Soul Brothers, and The Latinaires.
Boogaloo is entirely distinct from the Electric Boogaloo, a dance form that arose in the late 1970s and was a forerunner to breakdancing.