Juan Bautista — Juan Bautista Ramírez Romero, born on 24 June 1955 in Batey 8, in the municipality of Tamayo, Bahoruco province — was a Dominican bachata singer and songwriter known as El Destroza Corazones, one of the most popular bachateros of the late 1980s and the 1990s.

«Los Cibernéticos»

In the late 1970s he joined «Los Dominicanos del Ritmo», the group soon known as «Los Cibernéticos», where he shared the stage with figures of cabaret-era bachata such as Tony Santos and Marino Pérez.

Solo years

At the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s he stepped out as a soloist and built the catalogue that made his name: «Asesina sin matar», «Estoy aquí, pero no soy yo», «Hijo sin padre», «La casita de mi madre», «Rochy», «La puerta romperé», «La tristeza», «Traición de amigos» and «La ruta desaparecida». In the same decade Radhamés Aracena repeatedly re-recorded his hits at «Radio Guarachita» with a singer billed as El Solterito del Sur, to the point that the copies became better known than the originals. El Chaval de la Bachata later recorded one of his songs as a tribute.

Legacy

His signature line, by the account of the broadcaster Amado Vargas, who had introduced him on stage for years, was «Dios mío, esto sí es grande.» His later years were marked by heavy drinking and poverty, and Vargas was the one who confirmed his death, on 21 December 2013, to the Dominican press. He remains one of the voices most closely tied to the amargue style of bachata’s cabaret period.