Los Happy Boys

Milton Ramón Eliseo Peláez Matos was born on April 15, 1945, in the Batey Central of Barahona and settled as a child in the San Carlos neighborhood of Santo Domingo. A self-taught multi-instrumentalist on guitar, piano, violin and drums, he founded the group Los Happy Boys in 1959 together with Jorge Taveras and Mac Cordero, one of the earliest rock and roll acts in the Dominican Republic. He was also a member of Los Solmeños.

Recording career

In May 1967 Peláez signed as an exclusive artist to the Velvet label, recording «La Bemba» and «Perdón Papá» that year in Caracas. His songwriting catalogue, built on rock rhythms fused with local humor and topical satire, includes «El Viejito Ye-ye», «Más Feo Que Yo», «A la Fiesta», «Los Estudiantes», «Paco Cara de Maco», «El Juicio Final» and «Boogaloo». In 1980 he released the solo album «Carmencita», thirteen tracks that gathered his classic and newer material.

«El Hombre Show»

Nicknamed «El Hombre Show» for the breadth of his work, Peláez moved fluidly between music, radio and television. He helped create the comedy-news program «El Show de Noticias» in 1959, and from 1968 to 1970 produced the live musical program «Musiclan» for Radio Televisión Dominicana alongside Aníbal de Peña and Jorge Taveras. He later wrote for the country's leading midday programs, «El Show del Mediodía» and «El Sabroso Show», and created a string of recurring characters, most fondly remembered among them «El Patio de Medrano» for Rahintel.

Death

On July 4, 2006, Peláez was shot at the home of his neighbor Plutarco Ernesto González, whom he had gone to see to collect a debt of 450,000 pesos; he died shortly after at the Clínica Gómez Patiño in Santo Domingo. González was later convicted and sentenced to fourteen years in prison, and died in custody in 2016. Peláez was married to Adolfina Frappier and was survived by seven children.

Legacy

Milton Peláez is remembered as one of the founding figures of Dominican rock and as a writer and producer whose comic characters and musical satire shaped the country's television and radio for decades.