In many ways Rafael Escalona, born in the small rural village of Patillal near to the city of Valledupar in Cesar, is the very embodiment of the "idiosyncracia de la costa", a term to describe anything that perhaps seems unusual and uncommon but in the Colombian Caribbean coastal region it is the norm.
With his roots in Patillal, his evenings cooled by the winds rolling off the Sierra Nevada mountains and his ears seduced by the tales from the wandering vallanato troubadours that would frequent his home passing on news and gossip, Escalona grew up in almost Macondian manner.
Rafael Escalona's Life
By anyone's reasoning Escalona lived a full life, composing his first Vallenato song aged 15 and then never looking back. As a true Costeno (inhabitant of the coast) Escalona became a hardy parrandero (partier) as soon as he moved to Valledupar, enjoying whisky, rum and women in quantity, to such a measure that it is believed that he fathered 36 offspring.
It comes as no surprise then that Colombia's foremost Vallenato artist was also a firm friend of the Nobel prize winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Over time Escalona was also immortalised by Garcia Marquez being referenced in Cien Anos de Soledad or 100 Years of Solitude.
Escalona in the Presence of Power
In his twenties the composer had made his name and was often found in the company of the elite in Valledupar playing for Alfonso Lopez MiIchelsen then Governor of Cesar and later Colombia's President and Consuelo "la Cacica" Araujo Noguera. With these notable personalities in 1968 together they set up the Vallenato Legend Festival which has boomed in popularity and notoriety and quite clearly has the composer's blessing as a celebration that is not so much about the music but the unstoppable whisky soaked parranda!
Escalona was a Vallenato musician of class and substance retelling the same tales that had affected him all of his life, his memories, stories recounted by his father and from his wanderings through the Caribbean coast. He wrote a music that is to be shared, compositions worthy of a troubadour informing the rest of us of events in that particular region and at the same time hushing us into an awed audience. Perhaps his most widely recognised song in "Casa en el Aire".
Escalona Inhabits his "Casa en el Aire"
And so, a pivotal player in Colombian folklore has passed away, leaving us with a fond memory of his life. On May 13 2009 Rafael Escalona, Vallenato musician extraordinaire left us to inhabit, as if fulfilling the lyrics of perhaps his most famous and recognised song, his "Casa en el Aire".
Richard McColl - I am a freelance writer from deepest darkest London but for the past 10 years or so I have been maintaining my extended "writing break" in ...
