The voice is weathered, the soul intact

Although he is a relatively young performer as far as salsa giants go, singer Joe Arroyo looks much older than 47.

His has been a life of brilliance and excess, alcohol and drug addictions and hit singles, from the bordellos of Cartagena, where a 10-year-old Arroyo began his musical career performing tropical standards, to his current status as Colombia’s most severely underrated artist.

Watching him perform during a sparsely attended two-hour performance Thursday at the Mayan made you think of Billie Holiday’s final years.

His voice -- a weathered, much-abused instrument -- has lost the chocolaty luster of his classic ‘80s stint with the group La Verdad. It slips up often, losing control, like an untamed animal.

But the expressiveness is still there. Nothing can kill the soul, and Arroyo has always had soul to spare.

He revolutionized tropical music on the strength of his idiosyncratic vision alone -- his infamous “joe-son” draws mainly from the kinetic frenzy of ‘70s salsa, then adds generous doses of Colombian folklore and the bouncy vibe of Caribbean styles such as calypso and Haitian compas.

The combination never ceases to surprise. On the tender religious hymn “A Dios Todo Le Debo,” for instance, melodious clarinet licks added unexpected layers of honey-dripping sweetness to the punchy brass section.

Uninformed listeners might think of Arroyo as a nostalgia act, but he has never stopped making memorable albums.