Vinicio Franco was seen having one of his last performances, in front of a large audience, in 2015, when Gilberto Santa Rosa was accompanied by two glories of the meringue, he (Vinicio) and Joseíto Mateu, during the celebration of his 53rd birthday at the Nuryn Sanlley Amphitheater.
Tonight Vinicio “Mambo” Franco, as he was known in musical jargon, at that time at the age of 82, retained his grace and elegance in interpreting the meringue, sowing pointed with his long finger, which is became one of his characteristics in singing.
The Covid-19 shut down the life of one of our great performers of the meringue on Saturday, a rhythm in which he earned the nickname “Mambo”, due to the contagion of his vocalization. The artist had been admitted to the Ramon de Lara military hospital in the capital for a week.
Vinicio Franco dies in the middle of Christmas, when his voice returned to the radio, as he recorded the album “Merengues Nadalencs” which contains “Christmas Eve has arrived”, “Aguinaldo a la Sarandela” “Merry Christmas “,” Christmas Breezes “,” Christmas Antares “and” Christmas Joy “, among others.
His childhood
Vinicio Antonio Franco Rodríguez was born in Puerto Plata, on September 14, 1933. He grew up with the pain of not having met his mother, Carmela García.
His father was a master builder, he was regularly called by the dictator Rafael Leónidas Trujillo to be part of the team of important buildings such as La Presa de San Cristóbal and the hospital Heriberto Peter.
When Vinicio was two years old, his father, who had already formed another family in Santiago, was torn from his mother’s side and raised in Santiago with his stepmother and father.
“I never saw my mother, I didn’t know her because when my father took me with him, I was just two years old,” he confessed to Ramón Pastrano in an interview on the defunct TV show “Formally Informal “. He only saw her in a photograph provided by a relative.
In music
During his childhood his father gave him a guitar, although he never agreed with his decision to be a singer or musician.
When he was 15 he came to the capital to work with his father in the construction of the hospital Doctor Heriberto Peter.
In the capital he began to visit bars, in which he offered to help fashion singers.
So from time to time they allowed him to sing and paid him with alcohol, which they then exchanged for money.
One day the singer of the bar floor orchestra Yubiri got drunk, he could not sing, and Vinicio was asked outside to replace him tonight, and so he started in music.
“One day peten’s barber (José Arismendy Trujillo, the dictator’s brother) came to the bar to watch him sing and proposed to me that he go visit peten in La Veu Dominicana,” he recounted.
The next day Vinicio was tried by Radhamés Reis Alfau (peten’s advisor) and was hired to study singing and theater, with a salary of 125 pesos.
When Joseíto Mateu left the Super Orquestra Sant Josep (the peten orchestra), conducted by Papa Molina, Vinicio Franco entered as a singer in the early 1950s, earning a salary of 200 pesos.
trajectory
The meringue player had a career with 66 years of experience. In the orchestra of Antonio Morel it recorded his first meringues: “Apágame la vela”, written by Bienvenido Brens, and “Els cotons” and the safe “Escolta nena”.
“Sina Juanica”, a meringue by Félix López with Armando Beltré and Rico López, was another of his successes.
Vinicio formed the lead singer of the master orchestra Rafael Solano, according to Solano 46 years. With Solano he traveled to different countries “In Solano’s orchestra I recorded the meringue” El caderú “, it was with this meringue that I started using my finger because it was my father telling me you are half caderú … and I didn’t like my father calling me that, “he said.
In his meringues Vinicio was also heard shouting at the oxen: “Eyebrow gives me taste”, “Come round bolefuego …”.
The artist recorded more than 460 meringues in his career years, nuanced by glorious years in his voice with top-level orchestras in the mid-20th century.
Vinicio Franco recorded a 66-year career, in which he was a contemporary of Francis Santana, Joseíto Mateo, Luis Vásquez and Frank Cruz.
Other subjects that are known are “Gallito pinto”, “Alevántate”, “The skin of Juana”, “Dolores”, “In the dark”, “Somiar”, “The pichoncito”, “The needle”, “Sina Juanica “,” Message “,” Owner of me “,” Firewood “,” The cassava “,” The maricutana “.
With Johnny Ventura he participated in the recording of the song “Ah, I don’t know, no”, written by Johnny Ventura and Mundito Espinal.
Vinicio Franco is survived by his wife Florence Rosario and six children.
REACTION
Johnny Ventura.
“The history of the meringue loses one of its best cultists, sadly, refined singer, with an almost perfect tuning, long-standing. We have lost one of the meringue singers gentlemen of all history. My comparison for others, I am godfather of his first daughter and I deeply regret his death, “veteran Johnny Ventura told the DIARY guide with great regret.