Mick Hartley

Choreographed movements from a line of backing singers is familiar from Soul music. It’s mainly Motown we think of, I suppose, with the Temptations say. You find it in Salsa as well. With Merengue, though, it reaches whole new levels:

I have a weakness for Merengue, despite its irredeemable cheesiness. It’s fast and furious, yes, but not one of the great vehicles for expressing the depth and nobility of the human spirit. Those moves, though….

Somehow Merengue on record never quite reaches the glorious rhythmic abandon it achieves live or on video, but it took me a while to work that out. When I first saw a Merengue group I was mesmerised by the moves of the guys on stage, but since then listening to it has been mostly a disappointment. All those Merengue albums and CDs bought over the years were, I now realise, a futile search for that primal rhythmic ecstasy that you really only get when you’re watching it.

Unfortunately they don’t do themselves any favours by the way they film it. The camera will stick to the singer, or cut to the guys playing brass in the background – but this is not what we want to see. The whole point of those guys up front is to provide a visual focus to draw you in to the beat, to the excitement of the rhythm. They’re there to be looked at. We don’t want to see the drummer or the guy playing trumpet. We want to see the moves. They’ve been practicing those steps for weeks! They’re what it’s all about! Let’s see them, for Chrissakes!

This is from the Dominican Republic, I should say, for those unfamiliar with the genre. Merengue and Bachata are the DR’s contribution to the world of music. The DR maintained its musical heritage, such as it is, in large part thanks to Rafael Trujillo, who ruled from 1930 till his assassination in 1961 in an almost caricature Latin-tyrant caudillo fashion (Mario Vargas Llosa’s novel “The Feast of the Goat” is based round the assassination and is well worth reading), but he did like his music.

Bachata produced the DR’s one genuine megastar in Juan Luis Guerra (this is the one to get, I think). He was a class act, someone you’d find in the World Music section in record shops, who you might hear on the radio, played by Charlie Gillett. Merengue, though, never really fitted that niche: too formulaic, too much part of the pop end of the Latin music spectrum. These videos are mostly from the Eighties and early Nineties, and my impression is that this all in the past: Merengue clasico, as they call it. Now the big names – Olga Tanon, Elvis Crespo, Milly Quezada – are pop stars, miles away from the original downhome good-time music here.

If there was a Merengue king, it would’ve beeen Johnny Ventura (not one of his best, this, but check those moves!) but he’s out of the scene now, and drawing his pension.

Then there’s Wilfrido Vargas: it’s worth perservering with this one, past the strange falsetto vocals, till the guy starts rapping at 1:30. Or the wonderful El Vampiro. Come on, admit it, these guys are great, whether they’re vampires or zombies or whatever. Does popular music get any better than this?