Borracho de Amor

For most of Rafael Trujillo's dictatorship, bachata barely existed as a record. The word meant an impromptu party in the countryside, with melancholy, bittersweet songs played by poor, working-class musicians for audiences like themselves. Trujillo disliked it, and middle- and upper-class Dominicans dismissed it as music of little worth, linked to poverty, bars and brothels. It survived anyway, out of sight of the studios. That changed after Trujillo's death in 1961. Restrictions loosened, people from the countryside moved to Santo Domingo, and the music industry began recording and broadcasting far more, including bachata, provided the musician could pay. In 1962, at the Radio Televisión Dominicana studios, José Manuel Calderón recorded Borracho de amor and Condena, released on 45 rpm and played on the radio. They are recognised as the first bachata records ever made. Calderón was an unusual bachatero: he sang in a baritone, and he brought in strings, horns and piano and swapped the maracas for a güira. Recognition was slow to follow. Calderón moved to New York in 1967, and when he came back five years later he found bachata pushed to the margins, played nationally only by Radio Guarachita. Disillusioned, he returned to New York, where a growing Dominican community in Washington Heights gave rise to a lively bachata scene. Today bachata is one of the most popular styles of Latin music, and Borracho de amor marks the moment the music of the poor first made it onto vinyl, even if its pioneer received only a fraction of the credit.