Henry Hierro — Henry Rafael Hierro Fernández, born in San Francisco de Macorís on 26 September 1955, died there on 3 November 2025 — was a Dominican bassist, pianist, singer, arranger and producer. In New York in 1982 he and the singer Víctor Roque founded the orchestra now known as Víctor Roque y La Gran Manzana, whose «El poder de New York» made it one of the defining merengue bands of the 1980s, and he went on to arrange and produce for some of the genre’s biggest names.

From rock to merengue

Music came from his grandfather, a Cuban who played percussion, accordion, tambora, guitar and flute, built instruments and sat the boy in front of a tambora for the first time. As a teenager, though, Hierro wanted to play rock. When one of the big bands in his home town, «Los Bravos de Juan Félix», needed a bass player, he took the job, found merengue easy to keep time to and brought his first pay home; his grandmother told him to stay where the money was. He has said he started playing merengue for the pay and grew to love it. His formal training was patchy, and he taught himself largely from music books.

Bass player

He played bass and wrote arrangements for the earliest line-ups of Jossie Esteban y La Patrulla 15. In December 1978 he moved to the orchestra of Wilfrido Vargas as bassist, and it was Vargas, he told Listín Diario in 2008, who first had him sing.

La Gran Manzana

In 1979 he went to live in the United States. The band he put together there began with five or six musicians, Dominicans and players of other nationalities, and a singer from San Francisco de Macorís; Víctor Roque joined on conga. It was going to be called «Los Amigos», but they settled on a name for New York itself, and in 1982 he and Roque launched it as Víctor Roque y La Gran Manzana. A first album in 1983 made little impression. «El poder de New York», in 1985, broke through in American cities and at home, and the band’s run of hits — «Tus besos», «Rosa blanca», «Mentirosa», «Mole mole», «¿Cuándo llegará?», «No me sigas más», «Vamos a beber» — made it the sound of Dominican New York. Hierro was its musical director, pianist and arranger, and sang lead on songs such as «Tus besos».

Under his own name

In 1986, unhappy with how the band was being managed, he left to lead his own group. In 1987 he recorded «A millón», «La banda» and «El diente de oro» for «Karen Records»; «A millón» is still one of the songs most often played at his concerts and at parties, and «Déjame decirte» showed him as a soloist and songwriter.

Arranger and producer

His longest-lasting work was done in the studio. Hierro arranged and produced for Rubby Pérez, Los Toros Band, Héctor Acosta “El Torito”, Los Hermanos Rosario, Jackeline Estévez, Raffy Matias and Benny Sadel, among others; Héctor Acosta “El Torito” also spent two months singing in his orchestra.

Last years

Back in the Dominican Republic, he settled in San Francisco de Macorís. In 2022 Víctor Roque y La Gran Manzana marked forty years with a tour that opened in New York, and he and Roque were honoured together in San Juan. He released two albums from 2022 onwards and, in October 2024, the single «El negro quiere bailar», and had announced an album called «Bacharengue» that joined merengue and bachata. He died in San Francisco de Macorís on 3 November 2025, at the age of seventy.

Legacy

Henry Hierro helped give merengue a New York address. The band he co-founded turned the music of Dominican clubs in the city into a national success at home, and the arrangements he later wrote for other orchestras carried the same brass-driven, hook-heavy signature into the records of the 1980s and 1990s.