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1 Juan Luis Guerra – A Dominican Icon Biography notes about Dominican singer/songwriter Juan Luis Guerra and his band 440 By Tijana Ilich / Reviewed by JA Bornot Born: Juan Luis Guerra-Seijas June 7, 1957 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. Multi Grammy award winner singer, songwriter, composer, musical arranger and producer. Alma Mater: Berklee College of Music, Boston, MA. Trivia: Juan Luis Guerra's band, 440 (or 4.40) is named after the standard pitch of "A" = 440 cycles per second. Internationally, Juan Luis Guerra is the best well-known musician from the Dominican Republic. With his trademark beard, usually sporting a hat, he probably owes his 6’5” lanky frame to his father, basketball player Gilberto Guerra. When Juan Luis graduated from high school, he entered the Autonomic University of Santo Domingo, enrolling in courses in Philosophy and Literature. But that was not to last… Guerra Goes to Boston: After a year, his true passion became clearer and Guerra moved to the Music Conservatory of Santo Domingo. Subsequently he won a scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied musical arrangement and composition and met his future wife, Nora Vega. Finishing college, he returned home and found work as a musical composer in television advertising. He also played guitar locally; it was during these gigs that he met the vocalists that eventually became the famous 440. First Album: In 1984, Guerra and the 4.40 released their first album, Soplando. Guerra was very interested in jazz, and he described the music on Soplando as a “fusion between traditional merengue rhythms and jazz vocalizations". Although the album didn’t do very well when it was first released, it was re-released in 1991 as ‘The Original 4.40’ and today is considered a collector’s item. Record Contract: In 1985, the 4.40 signed a contract with Karen Records and, in an attempt to be more commercially accepted, Guerra altered their musical style to reflect the very popular, more commercial merengue. He included sections of ‘perico ripiao’, a form of merengue that added the accordion to the more traditional orchestration and was often performed at a very fast pace. His next two albums, Mudanza y Acarreo (1985) and Mientras Más lo Pienso... Tú (1987) followed this formula and Guerra/4.40 started to gain unstopable popularity and recognition Juan Luis Guerra and the 4.40: There were several changes in the vocalists who made up the 4.40 during those years, and by 1989 when the group’s first really successful album came out, the group’s name now featured Guerra as the central vocalist and their fourth album, Ojala Que Llueva Café (I Wish It Would Rain Coffee,) was billed under ‘Juan Luis Guerra and the 4.40’. Bachata Rosa: The success of Ojala Que Llueva Café was followed by their fifth album Bachata Rosa in 1990. Bachata Rosa sold 5 million copies, won a Grammy and is still today considered a seminal album in Dominican music. Although Guerra is not primarily a singer of traditional bachata, Bachata Rosa brought world awareness to a Dominican form of music that, before the album, was limited in popularity to just the Dominican Republic Areito and Guerra's European Tour: 1992 saw the release of Areito, his sixth album. It focused on poverty and poor conditions on the island as well as in many other parts of Latin America. The collection created controversy and found limited acceptance among Guerra’s fellow countrymen. The album, however, was well received in other parts of the world. Guerra spent that year touring Latin America and Europe.
