José María Veras Batista, who records as Joe Veras, is a Dominican bachata singer, guitarist, composer and arranger. Billed as El Hombre de Tu Vida, he has won the Dominican award for bachata singer of the year twice and bachata of the year once, and he writes and arranges most of what he records, which is unusual among singers of his generation.

Toy guitars and church choirs

He was born on 1 May 1964 in the province of Sánchez Ramírez, in the centre of the country. What he heard as a child was Radio Guarachita, and what the station played was José Manuel Calderón, Luis Segura, Eladio Romero Santos, Inocencio Cruz and Rafael Encarnación.

He built himself toy guitars and played his brother Eugenio’s when nobody was watching. By ten he was borrowing instruments from neighbours to practise on, and singing in the church choirs of his town.

Construction by day

His brother, by then in Santo Domingo and playing in a bachata group, sent for him to join as guitarist or bassist and to study agronomy. The city turned out to be harder than that, and for several years he worked in construction and played at night.

He passed through a group called Los Conquistadores, which broke up quickly, and then joined the orchestra of Félix Mirabal as guitarist and as the singer on its bachata numbers. That is where he learned to arrange and to write, with Mirabal encouraging him.

Dime qué pasó

He went out on his own under the name José Veras. In 1993 the producer José Luis Segura, son of Luis Segura, heard him rehearsing at his studio, took him on, bought him his first guitar and suggested he bill himself as Joe Veras so as not to be confused with the merengue singer of the same name.

Segura let him cut his first record, Joe Veras con Amor. Dime qué pasó, from that album, got him played across the east of the country and in parts of the capital.

Que se mueran de envidia

Con Más Amor followed in 1996, and the song Que se mueran de envidia carried the whole record. It was what allowed him to leave the building sites and live on music. Así es la Vida, the year after, took him outside the country and brought his first Casandra as bachata singer of the year.

From there the albums came steadily: Reencuentro, Acéptame Como Soy, Desde mi Alma, Simplemente, Carta de Verano, Tonto Corazón, La Travesía, Vida, Maestro, Firme, Tranquilo y Tropical, Entrega Total and Provócame among them, along with two collections given over to merengue. Carta de Verano brought a second bachata singer of the year in 2004, and in 2006 La Pared, written by Enrique Félix, took bachata of the year.

The invitations

Younger and older singers alike have called him in. He sang Amor Enterrado on Romeo Santos’s Utopía, the album on which Frank Reyes and Luis Vargas also appeared, and Tú No Sabes on the second volume of Luis Segura’s farewell record.

He sang No me Tocó Morir por ti with Henry Santos on Friends and Legends, recorded Como da Vueltas la Vida with Raulín Rodríguez, and in 2022 the Puerto Rican Farruko cut a remix of Que se mueran de envidia and brought him into the video for it.