The Sound of La Vida Dominicana

The Sound of La Vida Dominicana

ON Friday evening the Dominican singer Juan Luis Guerra, the Latin Recording Academy’s 2007 man of the year, will take the stage for a Madison Square Garden concert fronting his 16-piece band, 3 back-up singers and 4 dancers. If past New York shows are any indication, the crowd will be electrified by his anthemic merengues on the developing world’s problems and charmed by his metaphor-laced love ballads, singing along with virtually every word. But in a sense they’ll be doing it all in secret.

That is because Mr. Guerra sings in Spanish, rendering his lyrics largely incomprehensible to many New Yorkers, including plenty who love socially conscious lyrics and appreciate a fine turn of phrase.

“I’d love to be more skilled in English, to get songs like ‘Ojalá que Llueva Café’ into English,” Mr. Guerra said, citing the song about rural poverty that vaulted him to fame in 1989. “I’d love it if Americans could understand Dominican culture, Dominican metaphors.”

Juan Luis Guerra

Juan Luis Guerra

It is a vexing musical problem. Diplomats speak through interpreters, books are translated, movies are subtitled. But music jumps language barriers more awkwardly: the catchall term “world music” is in most cases shorthand for “music whose lyrics we can’t understand.” Mr. Guerra may have plenty of non-Spanish-speaking admirers — his current tour includes stops in Stockholm and Amsterdam — who love him for his gentle voice, catchy melodies, booming brass section and beguiling tropical rhythms but who have little idea what the songs are about.
That wouldn’t be so much of a problem if Mr. Guerra’s songs were of the “Bésame Mucho” variety, which (in case you didn’t know) means “Kiss Me a Lot.” But with Mr. Guerra’s songs people are actually missing something.

in Miami

In an interview in Miami, where his tour started last week, Mr. Guerra, who is bearded and 6 foot 6, recounted explaining his songs to his English teacher in New York. “The song that most caught her attention was ‘Ojalá que Llueva Café,’ ” he said. “After I explained it to her, she said: ‘Americans have to hear this song. Sooner or later, they have to hear this song.’ She told me I had to find someone to translate it.”
Easier said than done. The gist of the first verse is this:
May it rain coffee in the countryside.
Let a downpour of cassava and tea fall.
From the skies a drizzle of white cheese,
And to the south a mountain of watercress and honey.
But setting the translation to music and performing it in English would be a bit like creating a Swahili version of “Born in the U.S.A.” That is most true in what Mr. Guerra calls his “social merengues,” many of which have become anthems in Latin America. Though they are about health care, poverty and immigration, with lyrics that have brought many to tears, they play the neat trick of also being danceable party songs.

his songs

In “Niágara en Bicicleta,” a depressing portrayal of public hospitals in the developing world, named for a Dominican phrase indicating a situation as hopelessly difficult as traversing Niagara Falls on a bicycle. The narrator faints and is rushed to an emergency room, where the receptionist listens to the lottery numbers, a nurse talks to him in language usually reserved for dogs, and there’s no electric power for an EKG. The chorus is classic Guerra: where irresistibly danceable lyrics mesh reality with fantasy.
Don’t tell me that the doctors left.
Don’t tell me you don’t have anesthesia.
Don’t tell me someone’s drunk the alcohol
And sewn the thread for stitches into a tablecloth.
Don’t tell me the forceps are lost,
That the stethoscope is off partying,
That The x-ray machine has burnt out
And the serum has been used to sweeten the coffee.

singer Juan Luis Guerra

The Moving in, moving on, merengue, bachata y son.
It was his record label, EMI Televisa, that insisted on doing a mostly Spanish version, Mr. Guerra said, but he said he felt that the English version remains better. (The Spanish version won 2007 Latin Grammys for Best Song and Best Record.)
Understanding the words doesn’t keep a listener from enjoying a song of course. Mr. Guerra himself was an incurable Beatles fan growing up, and their use of harmony influences his arrangements to this day. But he didn’t get the lyrics.
“Never,” he said. “I never knew what they were saying until I was older. Not long ago I started studying the words of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ with my niece, and I finally understood the song. I used to sing it and have no idea what it was about.”

Guerra's Music Mirrors Dominican Republic

Guerra's Music Mirrors Dominican Republic


BY JORDAN LEVIN

Posted on The Miami Herald, Fri, Jun. 21, 2002
One of the most beloved and influential artists in Latin music, Juan Luis Guerra -- who appears at the Miami Arena Sunday night -- is also one of the most independent, with a career that defies traditional commercial wisdom. The composer/singer, who brought the merengue of his beloved Dominican Republic to unprecedented levels of fame and sophistication with Bachata Rosa (1991), releases albums sporadically, is famously press shy, and tours

Juan Luis Guerra

Juan Luis Guerra he is devoutly religious, and his witty, poetic songs often tackle social issues. El Niágara en bicicleta, the big hit off his last album, Ni es lo mismo, ni es igual (1988), compared the trials of going to a Third World hospital with crossing the famous Niagara Falls on a bicycle.

miusic

Guerra says he can't explain his success, and tries not to think about it in making his music. "I never thought about what I could do with my music; my work was just what I did," he says by phone from Santo Domingo. "I was searching for my own satisfaction, and the rest was just what came out. But you can't do things thinking about where it's going to end up. You just have to do what you have to do, and it works or it doesn't."

Bachata Rosa

"Bachata Rosa was so successful, I didn't believe I could ever do anything like that again," he says. Juan Luis Guerra  "So after that it seemed like really all I can do is create and believe in grace. Because I don't have the final decision, it's the public that makes the final decision."

Miami audiences will deliver their latest decision on Guerra on Sunday, when he gives his first public concert here in nine years at the Miami Arena. The show, which also features pop/ballad singer Ricardo Montaner, is the inaugural event of SBS Entertainment, a new concert production company created by Coconut Grove-based radio chain Spanish Broadcasting Systems.

musical journey

"He sings about what the people want to hear, day to day problems," says John Sepulveda, the new enterprise's general manager, as he explained why they picked Guerra for their first set of concerts (Saturday night he plays New York's Madison Square Garden). "He's an idol to a lot of people. Most [artists] take a more commercial attitude. It's been [nine] years since he's been in Miami, and we needed a big act that would guarantee a sellout."

Guerra is slightly more ambivalent. He is known to suffer from stage fright, and although he says he's looking forward to performing, he also admits to some nerves. "I do believe that it'll be a really beautiful, wonderful night -- an important night," he says. "When I'm on stage and I see everything is OK, I like it. But I have to tell you that it's a very emotional moment, and I only think it's going to be OK once I'm up there."

Juan Luis Guerra

MUSICAL MESSAGE





Raised in Santo Domingo, the tall, gangly Guerra once aspired to be a jazz musician, and studied at Boston's Berklee College of Music. But instead he devoted himself to the music and themes of his island. The title track of Ojalá que llueva cafe (Let it rain coffee), the 1988 album by Guerra and his group 4.40 (the name refers to a standard measure of musical pitch) evoked the poverty and beauty of the Dominican countryside -- "merengue with a message" and with newly sophisticated harmonies and arrangements.

music

     music

Bachata Rosa made the Dominican Republic's obscure country style of bachata an international hit with elaborately witty, sensual lyrics and catchy melodies. It sold four million copies worldwide and paved the way for the current popular wave of bachata artists like Monchy & Alexandra. On Fogaraté! (1994) he blended another obscure Dominican style, raucous perico ripiao, with African soukous.

Although love songs are a large part of his repertoire, social themes continue to inspire Guerra. The video for 1992's El costo de la vida (The cost of living), a sharp look at the troubles of poverty, was banned in parts of Latin America. It's a concern that is still rare among popular Latin musicians.

"It's part of our daily life in the Dominican Republic -- our newspaper gives me ideas,'' Guerra says. "When I heard Rubén Blades doing this with salsa, that opened the door for me to think I could do the same with merengue. But I think there's a lot more to be done on this line, and I don't know why others don't do it."

musical history

Bachata Rosa made the Dominican Republic's obscure country style of bachata an international hit with elaborately witty, sensual lyrics and catchy melodies. It sold four million copies worldwide and paved the way for the current popular wave of bachata artists like Monchy & Alexandra. On Fogaraté! (1994) he blended another obscure Dominican style, raucous perico ripiao, with African soukous.

Although love songs are a large part of his repertoire, social themes continue to inspire Guerra. The video for 1992's El costo de la vida (The cost of living), a sharp look at the troubles of poverty, was banned in parts of Latin America. It's a concern that is still rare among popular Latin musicians.

"It's part of our daily life in the Dominican Republic -- our newspaper gives me ideas,'' Guerra says. "When I heard Rubén Blades doing this with salsa, that opened the door for me to think I could do the same with merengue. But I think there's a lot more to be done on this line, and I don't know why others don't do it."

But he makes only a mild recommendation to the new generation of Dominican musicians, whether hardcore urban merengue or pop-bachata artists, who are more popular than ever. "I'm in no position to be a critic," he says. "But this is something I'd recommend to everyone -- don't disregard how you express yourself. We have to take care of our musical patrimony."

But Guerra seems determined to stay outside the commercial fray. He has remained with a small label, Karen, largely because they let him make his own recording schedule. Six years ago he bought a television station and two radio stations in the Dominican Republic, a successful business that enables him to spend more time with his wife and two children.

At the same time he converted to evangelism, which he says has given him greater certainty and personal independence. "What I have is a personal relationship with God, and I think he's come into my life to give me more willpower," he says.

In a way, his personal faith translates into his faith in his music. "Everything has its time," he says. "There's a time to come out ahead, there's a time to wait. Nothing is easy. You have to keep working and do the best you can."