The famous Dominican singer of Merengue Rubby Pérez died on Tuesday, April 8, at age 69, after the collapse of the roof of a disco in Santo Domingo, where he offered a concert, confirmed to the AFP his manager, Enrique Paulino.
It is correct, Paulino said when referring to the death of Pérez, whose real name was Roberto Antonio Pérez Herrera. “We are waiting for children to agree for the funeral,” he added. The collapse left at least 79 dead.
Rubby Pérez dreamed of being a baseball player when Juan Marichal dazzled in the big leagues, but a traffic accident took him to music. It ended up becoming one of the most emblematic voices of meringue.
Roberto Antonio Pérez Herrera made the Caribbean dance with the artistic name of Rubby Pérez and successes like I will return, In love with her and Looking for your kisses.
He was born on March 8, 1956 in Bajo de Haina and began his musical career in the late 1970s, after studying at the National Conservatory of Music.
On the scenarios, the right to be called “the highest voice of the meringue” was gained.
“I am destroyed … the best singer who has given the genre, the highest voice of the meringue. The friend and the idol of our genre has just been going,” said Wilfrido Vargas, another icon of this danceable rhythm, with whom Rubby Pérez jumped to fame more than four decades ago.
“I spent playing ball”
“I spent playing ball,” Rubby Pérez recalled in an interview with the program To the tv.
In the Dominican Republic, a passionate country for baseball, his father was fond of the lions of the chosen and hoped to see his son stand out as a player. His grandmother, who raised him, was a follower of the Cibaeñas eagles.
“Dad said that I had to be the second base of the chosen one,” he recalled then.
Everything changed when, at age 15, he was hit by a truck, which caused permanent injuries to the right leg.
It was his brother, Neifi, who fulfilled the family baseballos of the family, when he reached the big leagues, where he played for 12 seasons.
During his long rehabilitation, music wrapped Rubby Pérez. In the hospital, he sang and played the guitar to entertain himself. Other patients, impressed, asked for more. They did not know his name, so they called him for his bed number: “Bed 13”.