Rubby Perez, singer of merengue hits, dead at 69

Rubby Perez dreamed of becoming a baseball player as a child in the Dominican Republic, but a traffic accident led him to become one of merengue music's most recognizable voices.

The singer, known for hits such as "Volvere" and "Enamorado de Ella", died at the age of 69 on Tuesday after the roof of the Santo Domingo nightclub where he was performing collapsed, his manager said.

The disaster left dozens of people dead and prompted the Dominican Republic to declare three days of mourning.

Born on March 8, 1956 in the town of Bajos de Haina near the capital, Roberto Antonio Perez Herrera said he spent much of his childhood dreaming of becoming a professional baseball player.

"I spent my time playing ball," Perez recalled in one interview with a local TV station.

But he suffered permanent injuries to his right leg after he was hit by a pickup truck at the age of 15, dashing his dreams of baseball fame.

Instead Perez studied at the National Conservatory of Music in Santo Domingo and in the late 1970s he began his music career.

On stage, he became known as "The Loudest Voice of Merengue" -- a Caribbean genre characterized by fast, danceable beats.

After a successful stint as part of influential merengue producer Wilfrido Vargas's orchestra, Perez went solo in 1987.

His songs reached the Billboard charts, with Perez joking that he "hit home runs in music."

The singer was on stage at the Jet Set club in Santo Domingo when there was a blackout and the roof came crashing down in the early hours of Tuesday, according to eyewitness reports.

Perez's daughter Zulinka told reporters she had managed to escape after the roof collapsed, but he did not.

Perez's former band leader Vargas said in an Instagram post that he was "devastated."

"The friend and idol of our genre has just left us," he wrote.

Agence France-Presse