Santiago Cerón, born in Santo Domingo on 25 July 1940 and died in New York on 10 May 2011, was a Dominican sonero and songwriter, one of the first Dominican singers to build a lasting career inside New York’s Latin music scene.

From La Voz Dominicana to Arsenio Rodríguez

He began as an amateur singer on the state station La Voz Dominicana and trained as a lyric tenor at the Escuela de Bellas Artes before emigrating to New York at twenty-two. There he met the legendary Arsenio Rodríguez, who introduced him to Cuban vocal style; the two recorded three albums together between 1964 and 1966.

Merengue and salsa in New York

Cerón sang merengue in Luis Kalaff’s orchestra, Los Alegres Dominicanos, and worked with Pete Rodríguez and Tony Pabón’s La Protesta before becoming vocalist and güiro player for Johnny Pacheco’s orchestra, where he recorded the classic «Se Me Perdió la Cartera» alongside Larry Harlow, Adalberto Santiago and Héctor Lavoe.

A solo catalogue

He launched his own band and a solo recording career in 1980 with «Tumbando Puertas», followed the same year by «Navegando en Sabor» and «Canta si Vas a Cantar». Over three decades he recorded some thirty-two albums, with «Cruel Tormento», «Lindo Yambú», «Baja y Tapa» and «Espíritu Burlón» among his best-known songs.

Legacy

Cerón died of heart problems in New York in 2011. In 2018, a stretch of Sickles Street in Washington Heights, where he had lived for years, was co-named in his honor — the first street in New York City named for a Dominican singer.