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Juan Luis Guerra music biography continued...

Dominican Republic, Guerra studied at the Music Conservatory of Santo Domingo and subsequently won a scholarship to the Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied musical arrangement and composition. Returning to the Dominican Republic after college he began to work as a composer for TV commercials and began to play his guitar locally, where he met musicians that would become his backup band-the 4-40. In 1984, Guerra and the 4-40 released their first album, Soplando, but it did not fare well commercially. Signing with Karen Records in 1985, he came out with two meringue-influenced albums that piqued interest. They would breakout in 1989 with the release of Ojala Que Llueva Café (I Wish It Would Rain Coffee) and earn even greater popularity in 1990 with the album Bachata Rosa, which sold 5 million copies, won a Grammy and is still today considered a seminal album in Dominican music. Although Guerra was 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 the Dominican Republic.



In 1992, Guerra changed course and released the album Areito, which focused more on social commentary about the poor economic conditions in his homeland rather than the joy of bachata. The album did not sell well, nor did its follow-up Fogarte. In 1995 Guerra announced his retirement and began concentrating on acquiring local television and radio stations and promoting unknown local talent. He came out of retirement in 2004, after a period of immersion in Evangelical Christianity, and released an album called Para Ti, which was religious in nature. The album did well, garnering two Billboard awards in 2005 (for "Best Gospel-Pop" and "Tropical-Merengue"). In 2007, Guerra released La Llave De Mi Corazon, which won five Latin Grammy Awards and demonstrated that he still had the key to the hearts of millions of fans.