Rivera organized his own orchestra by 1961, when he started working on his album "Que gente averiguá" (What nosey people), which was released in 1963. The lineup for this record included Charlie Palmieri and Eddie Palmieri on piano, Barry Rogers, Mark Weinstein, and Manolín Pazo on trombones, and Kako on percussion, among others. Like most Latino orchestras of the time, Rivera's orchestra didn't play plenas exclusively. Most of Rivera's plena numbers broke into a salsa section in mid-song, and he would sing or play any genre at dances and shows. This explains his experiments mixing plena with pachanga, mambo and Dominican merengue, such as the album's title track, a song where he mocked people who openly criticized that he was a miser, recycling old clothes until they wore thin, keeping his money hidden in a barrel or wearing an old hat from his Mayagüez days down 8th Avenue in Manhattan. Cheo Feliciano admits being Efraín's roadie once around this time.