Enrique Féliz, known as El Tío Enrique, is a Dominican singer-songwriter and Catholic lay preacher born in Tamayo, in the province of Bahoruco. He is the author of the merengue «El Melao de Mireya» and of songs recorded by some of the leading names in Dominican merengue and bachata.

From Tamayo to the university

He grew up helping his father with the cattle and began writing songs as a teenager, shaped by the social and political climate of the time. He played in Los Juveniles de Tamayo and then in the Combo Caribe de Tamayo, a group of adults in which he was the youngest member.

In the 1980s he entered the Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo to study education and social communication, and joined MCU Canta, the vocal group of the Movimiento Cultural Universitario. With it he toured the country singing for students, workers and farmers. «Frases Inconclusas» was his best-known song from that period.

«El Melao de Mireya»

«El Melao de Mireya», recorded in 1985 and produced by Karen Récord, brought him national recognition. Juan Luis Guerra wrote the arrangement, Ramón Orlando played piano and Ángel Miró Andújar, «Catarey», played tambora. The chorus answers its own question —¿cuál será el melao que tiene Mireya?— in the call-and-response manner of a carnival comparsa, the scene that gave him the idea. He has said that it took him out of anonymity.

He also wrote «Creencias», a costumbrista merengue with a touch of mangulina and arrangements by Ramón Orlando, commissioned for the television program De Noche and first performed with the orchestra of Jorge Taveras.

Songwriter

After a decade in the United States, from 1990 to 2000, he returned at the end of 2000, worked as associate creative director at an advertising agency and wrote bachata and merengue for other artists. Luis Vargas recorded «Lo Sé», Antony Santos recorded «Dosis de Amor», «Camarera» and «Me Rompió la Cama», and Joe Veras recorded «La Pared», which earned Féliz the Premio Casandra for Best Bachata in 2003. He also won two Casandra awards for Best Children's Show for his productions «La Casa del Tío Enrique» and «Los Duendes y el Tío Enrique». He was vice president of the Sociedad General de Autores y Compositores of the Dominican Republic, and his duet «Temperatura Ambiente» with Johnny Ventura was one of the last merengues Ventura recorded.

Faith and later work

In the United States he came to the Catholic faith, a turn he dates to September 21, 1997, and he began serving as a «predicantor», a role he has combined with his work as an artist. His song «Levántate y Anda» became a hit on Christian radio. He recorded «Salmos, Cuerdas y Tambores», a set of psalm settings, and the albums «Iluminado», «Mi Adoración» and «Celebrando».

In 2022 Mayimba Music released «Cultura Revolucionaria», an acoustic album of the protest songs he wrote in his university years, followed by «Cultura Domusicana: El Legado». «Recogiendo lo Mío» collects the songs he wrote that became hits for other singers. His merengue típico «Pegao de Dios» belongs to his recent spiritual repertoire, and his «Perico Ripiao» took second place among sixty entries in a competition of típico music.