Carlos Alfredo Fatule Guerrero, who performs as Carlos Alfredo, was born in La Romana in 1961. He is a Dominican singer, composer, producer, actor and television presenter, and he has been working for more than forty years.

Merengue con Ópera

In September 1985 he released the record that fixed him in the national memory. Merengue con Ópera, produced by Milton Peláez, does exactly what the title says: it drops arias — Figaro from The Barber of Seville among them — into a merengue.

The joke works because both halves are played straight. The singing is real operatic singing and the band is a real merengue band, and the comedy comes from the collision rather than from mockery of either. That takes a voice that can actually do both things.

El Merengue de los Famosos, from the same year, runs a related gag: what the great balada and pop voices would sound like singing merengue. Al Lado belongs to that first run too.

The long career

Sigue Amándome followed in 1988, and the romantic side of his catalogue has kept going since. Te Prometo and Solo en Mi Cuarto are recent live recordings.

He has spent as much of his life on television and on stage as on record — an actor and a presenter as much as a singer, which is the natural home for someone whose best-known song is a piece of musical theatre in three minutes.

The next Fatule

His daughter Techy Fatule is a singer-songwriter with her own catalogue, and she has recorded a merengue in tribute to him. The surname now belongs to two generations of Dominican music.