Fernando Villalona

"The first artist named "El Mayimbe" (Born Ramon Fernando Villalona Evora On May 7, 1955, aged 52) is a Dominican merengue singer whose popularity started to grow in the early 1980s and has not declined ever since. Fernando began singing at a very early age and became popular after participating in "El Festival de la Voz", an amateur TV talent show. After that, merengue icon Wilfrido Vargas hired him to form part of his group "Los Hijos del Rey" but Fernando and the group would soon be separated after his popularity became larger than the group itself. He would then go into a period of drugs and isolation but never stopped singing, recording some of his best music during that period. Songs such as "Celos", "Te Amo Demasiado", "Dominicano Soy", "Sonambulo", "Baila en la Calle" among others became popular in the 1980s. "Quisqueya", "No Podras", "Musica Latina", "Retorno" and "Me He Enamorado" were some of his big hits in the 1990s. In recent years he has had some health problems making performing a difficult task.But beside that he still been probably the most important merengue singer in the Dominican history.