Subscribe
First off my condolences to his family.
Rafael Calixto Escalona Martinez’s first song is dated February 1943. The seventh of nine children he was to become one of the most prominent Vallenato music composers ever. He grew up listening to peasants and troubadours of the region that often passed by his village bringing news from Valledupar to his childhood village town Patilla. His poetic habits caught him writing songs whenever a situation merged; of sadness and happiness, love and lament, angst and parties. He was a composer who’s style was atypical. Not a musician, he recanted stories often just chorus’ and verses later to be sung by musicians from Valledupar and across Colombia. He was also a long time friend of Gabriel García Márquez, who included him in his stories and once told him that his own master piece novel, 100 years of solitude, was just a 350 page Vallenato. Whether it was inspiring Colombian telenovelas, winning awards for his authorship or his hundreds of songs recanting everything from lewd nostalgia and disgust to honoring his second daughter, Rafael Calixto Escalona Martinez, will be remembered forever.
