Concert: Juan Luis Guerra

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Juan Luis Guerra

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Background- Juan Luis Guerra is known for making the merengue and bachata styles of music famous in the international level.

Juan Luis Guerra was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and is considered to be a merengue superstar, a poet and musician of the native people of Dominican Republic. He is quite popular and is loved throughout the Latino world. He and his band is responsible for bringing in a new wave in the tropical music scenario, which has been neglected during the late 80's. His father was a professional baseball player, but Guerra was more interested in music. He grew up near the National Music Gallery, where he could hear the music and was mostly influenced by the music of the Beatles as well as that of the U.S. hippies. He was mostly self-taught, in guitar. He decided to take part in contest and their he played the guitar to much applause. He won the contest and then went on to attend the National Conservatory on a scholarship. His enthusiasm and his talent impressed his instructor so much that he helped Guerra to get admission into one of the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Massachusetts and there Guerra learned the various genres of jazz. But after some time, he found that he was missing his native Dominican Republic. After completion his education, he returned to his own land. He also formed his own group 440, they took the name from the tuning pattern of the A note 440 hertz. Once there, he started combining different genres of music- the the folk songs, the local African music and jazz, along with his group. The name 440 was actually given José Gilberto, the brother of Guerra. Jose regularly used to watch them rehearsing and once commented that since they were trying hard to stay in perfect tune, they should call themselves 440.

After much they released their first album Soplando, which was a minor hit, but was able to left a impression among the music lovers. So they started working hard for their next number, and so Mudanza y Acarreo and Mientras Más Lo Pienso Tu, Guerra and 440 starting blending merengue and lightning-quick riffs of "perico ripiao," in their music. The new music was named as "bachata-merengue". This kind of music was a great success with the crowds who were bored from hearing the same old music and it was also critically acclaimed by their peers, fans and the critics of the Dominican Republic. Their next success came when the government of Dominican Republic, selected them to represent the country in the International Music Festival of OTI, the Organization of Iberoamerican Television. They were a huge success in the event.

Following the success in the event, Guerra and 440 released their next album "Ojalá Que Llueva Café" in the year 1988. The album became one of their smashing hits and it also became the third best-selling album in Latin America. Next came "Bachata Rose" in the year 1991, which also became another greatest hit throughout America and Guerra was awarded his first Grammy Award. He along with his band started touring. Next was "Areito" which was a controversial album. In 1995, he changed his musical pattern and released his next album "Fogaraté", which featured the popular African soukous music and as a result it also became popular.

In the year 1998, he released "Ni Es Lo Mismo Ni Es Igual" which was a smashing hit and it won him three Grammy Awards for Best Merengue Performance, Best Tropical Song for "El Niagara en Bicicleta," and for Best Engineered Album. In 2004, he released his next album "Para Ti" and it won him two awards in the categories of Gospel-Pop and Tropical-Merengue at the Billboards in 2005. For his contributions to the music of his country, Guerra has been honored with the Latino Special Award conferred to him by the Music Academy of Spain.

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