Ray Polanco, known as "El Sinsonte," is a Dominican merengue singer and bandleader who came out of the orchestra circuit of the early 1980s and became one of the recognizable voices of the genre’s golden era. His merengue reading of "Frente a una copa de vino" is the record he is remembered by, and his timbre — light, high and unusually clean — gave him both his nickname and a career-long comparison he never entirely escaped.

Early years and Orquesta Liberación

Polanco is from Mao, in the province of Valverde, and moved to the capital to pursue music with the help of the radio broadcaster José Guillermo Sued and the singer Carlos Manuel El Zafiro. The early years were lean; he has spoken openly about periods when rent and food were uncertain.

He got his start with the maestro Andrés de Jesús and sang with the Orquesta Liberación, taking over as its vocalist after Alex Bueno moved on. The two voices were close enough that the resemblance became a talking point in Dominican music circles and stayed one for decades — a subject Polanco addressed directly in a 2021 television interview rather than letting it stand.

Solo debut and "Frente a una copa de vino"

In 1985 Polanco debuted with his own orchestra on El Show del Mediodía, performing "El príncipe," with a single issued that year on Gemini Records in the Dominican Republic. The same season he sang "A veces," a Mario Díaz composition recorded with the Orquesta de Andrés de Jesús — one of the two songs that put Díaz on Dominican radio for the first time.

His signature record came in the mid-1980s: a merengue version of "Frente a una copa de vino," a song first sung by Luisito Rey. The arrangement moved a slow Spanish-language ballad onto the dance floor without losing the lyric, and it became one of the defining Dominican recordings of the decade. In February 1986 he performed it in New York at the eighth Carnaval del Merengue, held at the Felt Forum of Madison Square Garden.

Recordings

Polanco’s recorded catalog is concentrated in the second half of the 1980s:

• "Frente a una copa de vino" — his best-known recording,

• El Sinsonte — the album, issued on Franfer in the Dominican Republic and by Palacio Records in Venezuela in 1986,

• "Mariquilla" (1987), "La quiero y la quiero," "Ipacaraí," "Fiesta de carnaval," "Dos amores," "Que no se rompa la noche" and "Te mataría,"

• and an appearance on the compilation Los bárbaros del merengue (Palacio, 1986).

Absence and return

After the merengue boom subsided Polanco withdrew from the media for an extended period. He resurfaced in November 2019 with "Llegó Navidad," a Christmas merengue arranged by Sandy Valdez and filmed for video across Santo Domingo, in a relaunch handled by the promoter Frederick Núñez, and reappeared on television in April 2021.

Legacy

Ray Polanco occupies a particular place in Dominican merengue: a singer whose reputation rests less on volume of output than on one recording that entered the permanent repertoire. His version of "Frente a una copa de vino" is still the reference point, and his passage through the Orquesta Liberación places him inside one of the most consequential lineages in 1980s merengue — the orchestra that shaped the romantic, orchestral sound the decade is remembered for.