Los Hermanos Rosario are a Dominican merengue orchestra formed by seven brothers from Higüey. They were the first merengue group to reach the top ten of the Billboard charts, and across four decades they have been the band the genre is measured against.

Salvaleón de Higüey

The group played its first date on 1 May 1978, in its own town, for the municipal authorities at a Labour Day event. Santo Hernández danced at the front of it from that year until 1983. They worked the eastern towns until the bandleader Chiquitín Payán hired them for the Hotel Romana at Casa de Campo, which was the booking that took them out of the province.

They had already recorded a first single, María Guayando, when they moved to the capital in 1980 and made an album. Las Locas came off it and went to the top of every Dominican chart, alongside Vengo Acabando and Bonifacio, which everyone calls El Lápiz.

Nineteen eighty-three

The founder, pianist and musical director was Pepe Rosario. He died in March 1983, and the group stopped playing. The brothers considered giving it up and going home.

They went on instead, with Toño Rosario and Rafa Rosario in front. Acabando appeared in 1987 with Borrón y Cuenta Nueva, Adolescente and La Luna Coqueta, and from there the run did not stop.

Bomba

Otra Vez, Fuera de Serie and Insuperables made them the most played orchestra in the country: Rubia de Fuego, Ingrata, Mi Tonto Amor, Bomba, Cumandé, Loquito Por Ti, Dime, Esa Morena, Bríndame Una Copa, Desde Que la Vi and Mil Horas. Pecadora, from the same stretch, was used by Pedro Almodóvar on the soundtrack of Tacones Lejanos.

Pochy Familia had arranged and written for them before founding Pochy y su Cocoband, which is one of the reasons the two catalogues sound related.

Morena Ven

Los Mundialmente Sabrosos, in 1993, took them out of the country for good. Amor, Amor went to number one on the tropical charts of the United States, Puerto Rico, Panama, Venezuela, Colombia, Central America and home, and put them on Billboard for the first time. The second single, Morena Ven, made them the first merengue group to enter the Billboard top ten — something only Juan Luis Guerra 4.40 had managed before.

La Dueña del Swing

Los Dueños del Swing followed in 1995 and is the record they are known by. Billboard named it tropical album of the year, and La Dueña del Swing became one of the most widely played merengues ever recorded. Un Día en Nueva York, La Cleptómana, Caramelo, Oleila and Mujer Prohibida came off the same album.

Y Es Fácil! arrived in 1997, Bomba 2000 in 1999 and Swing a Domicilio in 2002, carrying El Rompecintura, El Fin de Semana, Siento and Ya Me Liberé. Otra Vez, Fuera de Serie, Insuperables, Los Mundialmente Sabrosos, Los Dueños del Swing and Y Es Fácil! all earned gold, platinum or double platinum, and the American recording industry association certified sales on the last three.

The rooms and the halt

They have played Carnegie Hall, Madison Square Garden, Lincoln Center and Radio City Music Hall, the Poliedro in Venezuela, and festivals and halls in Milan, Rome, London, Madrid, Amsterdam, Brussels, Zurich and Berlin. Barranquilla has given them the Congo de Oro more than once, including a Súper Congo de Oro, and they hold a Guinness-certified record, shared with Andy Montañez, for the largest crowd ever gathered in front of a stage at the Canary Islands carnival.

A legal dispute with their former label, Karen Records, then kept them out of the studio for five years. They came back with Aura, released through J&N Records, and they are still working.