Daniel Santacruz (born November 23, 1976) is a singer-songwriter, recording artist and music producer. Born in New Jersey, USA and raised in the Dominican Republic to a cuban father and a dominican mother, Santacruz is a three time Latin Grammy Award nominee. While still very young he moved to Santo Domingo with his parents, and immediately felt attracted to the dominican music, mostly merengue. His musical influences range from Johnny Ventura, Wilfrido Vargas, Fernando Villalona, Sergio Vargas and Juan Luis Guerra to Luis Miguel, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Julio Iglesias and Sting. Although Santacruz has cited that his biggest musical influence was his mother, who from an early age used to sing boleros to him and also used to make ​​imaginary interviews to a young Daniel with a small tape recorder. His father, also a music lover, introduced him to classical music and to the 50's and 60's sound. The first musical notes are known from his maternal grandmother Ana Zulema Victoria who was a pianist and also a piano teacher. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.