Roberto del Castillo is a Dominican merengue and bolero singer, television presenter and producer from Hato Mayor del Rey. He joined Johnny Ventura's orchestra in January 1978 under a stage name Ventura gave him, later recorded as a soloist for «Sony Discos», where «Hasta Que Te Conocí» carried his name beyond the Dominican Republic, and built a parallel career in television that led to «El Show del Mediodía».

Johnny Ventura's orchestra

In September 1977 del Castillo was invited to sing at the patron-saint festival of Hato Mayor. He sang a romantic song, and Johnny Ventura asked him to join the orchestra. He first declined in order to keep up his engineering studies; Ventura called him after returning from a tour of the United States, and del Castillo joined on 20 January 1978, together with another young musician, as part of the orchestra's new generation, «La Nueva Cosecha». The orchestra had lost two of its singers, Luisito Martí and Anthony Ríos, at the start of 1977. Ventura gave him the name Roberto del Castillo.

He arrived as a ballad and bolero singer and learned merengue inside the band, living for a time in Ventura's house. His first recorded song was «Honor a la Verdad», on Ventura's 1978 album «Presentando a... Mi Nueva Cosecha!». The «Combo Show» sang and danced choreographed steps taken from the dancers at the parties where it played, and del Castillo took part in that part of the act.

Solo recordings

In 1986 and 1987 Ángel Carrasco, a representative of «Sony Discos», proposed a production with del Castillo as soloist. It was recorded in 1987 with Ventura's orchestra and included «Hasta Que Te Conocí», a Juan Gabriel song that Carrasco offered him; he recorded the vocal in a Miami studio after midnight. Del Castillo credits the song with internationalizing his career. He made four or five productions for «Sony Discos», and his other best-known songs as a soloist include «Agua Viva», «Justo a Tiempo», «La Competencia», «Mi Novia» and «Mi Mujer». He names Madison Square Garden, the Viña del Mar festival, the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles and the Roberto Clemente Coliseum in San Juan among the high points of his career.

Television

His move into television began with a proposal for a travelling show, «La Caravana Artística», in which a truck served as a stage and toured patron-saint festivals, feeding a twelve-hour Sunday programme; he followed it with a morning consumer programme, «La Fiesta del Consumidor». He joined «El Show del Mediodía» around 2008, working alongside María María and Arisleyda Villalona and also as a humorist, and in 2018 he was producing a weekday programme on the cable channel «Supercanal 33».

After Ventura

Ventura died on 28 July 2021. In a March 2022 interview del Castillo described him as a father figure and said he supported a legacy project to keep the orchestra's arrangements and repertoire alive.

Legacy

Del Castillo has sung with Ventura's orchestra and under his own name for more than four decades. He says that singing remains his greatest passion, with television second.