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Alex Wolfe: What part of the Dominican Republic do you come from?

Luis Vargas: I come from the Northeast, what they call"La Linea", "the Line". The place I was born is called Santa Maria. That belongs to Manzanillo, by Pepillo Salcedo, in the Montecristi area.

AW: Can you tell us a little about your family?

LV: Nada, nothing; we are from a humble class of people, or, to be precise, poor. (Laughs) But my family is good people, honorable people. We are twelve brothers and sisters, but I'm the only musician. Someare teachers, some work in the community, but none wanted to be a musician. I was the only one. My father and mother are still living but my grand parents have died. All my brothers and sisters are alive as well. I have seven children. What else. It's all marvelous.

AW: If no one in your family was a musician how did you learn to play the guitar.

LV: Well, if you analyze it, of people with the last name Vargas, in the whole world not just the Dominican Republic, we have the following artists: Wilfredo Vargas, Sergio Vargas, Marta Vargas, Carlitos Vargas, who is an outstanding guitarist, and many others whom I don't remember now. From Mexico, if you think about it, you have don Pedro Vargas; in Spain I met a whole family with the name Vargas, and that's where the race of my family were born, the roots. The Vargas' carry music in their veins. Even the one in my family who have dedicated themselves to music, they all sing, even if it's just in the bathtub.

AW: How did you obtain your first guitar?

LV: When I was nine years old, I began singing in school. The children would have a recital every Friday and my teacher would always put me in the first row to recite on that day, to sing. My family realized that I liked to sing. And I was always begging my mom and dad to buy me a guitar. But our situation was not good enough to buy me a guitar until one day my mom one a small sum of money in the local numbers game and she bought me a guitar.It cost sixty four Dominican pesos, which back them were on a par with the dollar, more or less. That was it, my first guitar, back in 1973 or 1974.

AW: What brand was it?

LV: Valenciana

AW: A Spanish guitar?

LV: Spanish. Valencian. I still have it. It's in a sort of museum I have at my restaurant in Santiago, in the Dominican Republic. That's where my first guitar is, hanging on the wall.

AW: So you started playing on a classical Spanish guitar?

LV: Well, they bought me the guitar but I really didn't know how to play it until I met a person named Luis Acosta, who taught me my first chords. Then I started to play, but I had no idea in what style. I was all about serenades with little romantic ditties. There wasn't much bachata back then. So it went like that until this new direction came that we are now spreading throughout the world.

AW: Did you give your first guitar a name? LV: No, not that one. It was just to learn on and to play in the early day when I formed my first band. But there was no reason [to name it] because it was just an average guitar. Besides, I didn't even have a name, or fame or anything.

AW: When did you start listening to bachata, or in those times the songs of bitterness?

LV: Well, you know, since I was little I'd heard the songs of Luis Segura, Jose Manuel Calderón, Paniagua, and those people.

AW: What artistic names have you used over the years?

LV: First they called me the "Jefe Supremo de la Bachata" [Supreme Boss of Bachata]. A friend of mine who was a radio disk jockey baptized me with that one. His name is Sdalvador Díaz Alejo. In that area of the northeast border line [with Haiti] I was the only bachatero. There were no others. That's when they called me the "Jefe Supremo." Later when I moved to Santiago de los Caballeros, they baptized me the "Rey Supremo de la Bachata" [the Supreme King of Bachata]. These terms, these qualifiers, don't have anything to do with trying to be superior to anyone. It's just that these nicknames have become a tradition in Bachata. I don't really feel like a king, but I like my nickname.

AW: What do you call te guitar you use now?

LV: The one I use now? Well, it's a normal guitar but we have adapted it to carry a pickup microphone, as if it were electric. I was the first one to make this modification. Later other bachateros begin to do the same.

AW: Why did you do this?

LV: It was in the search for a new style, a new direction for bachata. Bachata was different befor but in scrutinizng the situation we decided to make the change.

AW: I mean, have you given your guitars names?

LV: Oh,I have had guitars with mnay different names. I have had the millionaire, the laser guitar, the millenium guitar (laughs) I just give them names for fun.

AW: Why did you call one the American?

LV: La Americana (The American) [laughs] It was a white guitar, very white, so I called it La Americana. Of course there are black Americans too, but I liked this name so…

AW: Your guitar style is very special. Why is it different?

LV: I have always believed in originality and self-expression. I was born with this style. Before Raulín, Frank Reyes and all these other talented young exponents of today who have their own styles, before all these guys came along I had to find a style for myself. When I staryted out there was a guy named Eladio Romero Santos who was the only person who played merengue on guitar, in other words in bachata style, and he did it well. In the beginning I imitated him and made music similar to his. One day I ran into to him and he told me, " Look, you play very well and you do nice covers of my songs but you need to find your own style because you are just making me more famous." I though about it and realized I had to find my own style. That's why my style is neither very frenetic nor very laid back and depressed. It is a style that fits me.

AW: Tell us about your experiences writing bachata

LV: Writing is something that comes from the moment. I don't say, "Okay, now I'm going to write this song." Originality is usually a spontaneous thing. We are sitting here talking aright now and I might latch on to something, a word or a phrase, like, :"I dropped the bottle." For example. I think it's funny, the phrase, and so the lyrics for a song come out of this. Other times, ideas come from dreams I have. I wake up in the night and write things down. Not the whole dream but part of it. Songs also come out of the loves I've had, the desamores (un-loves) If I have a girlfriend and we have problems, or how I fell in love with her, how I conquered her, how we're doing. Songs come out of all thos things because a bachatero writes about his lived experiences, his person life.

AW: What is "desamor?"

LV: "Desamor?" Well, I don't know if you have a word in English for this but [laughs] "desamor" is when nobody lo0ves you. Like when you feel the emptiness of being unloved, that is "desamor."

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