Rafael Calixto Escalona Martinez was a Colombian composer and troubadour.
16 Facts About Rafael Escalona
2.
Rafael Escalona was known for being one of the most prominent vallenato music composers and troubadours of the genre and for being the co-founder of the Vallenato Legend Festival, along with Consuelo Araujo and Alfonso Lopez Michelsen.
3.
Rafael Escalona was a long-time friend of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who included him in his stories and once told him that his own masterpiece novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, was just a 350-page Vallenato.
4.
Rafael Escalona was an atypical music composer: he does not play any instruments or sing so his songs can in some ways be difficult to analyze.
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Rafael Escalona's songs constitute a legacy of a past generation of Colombians in his memory, a pictorial collage, full of grace, that narrates stories, customs and gossips from his region.
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Rafael Escalona left a legacy of his loves and pains, humour and poetry.
7.
Rafael Escalona was born on May 26,1926, to Colonel Clemente Escalona Labarces, veteran of Thousand Days War and Margarita Martinez Celedon in Patillal.
8.
Rafael Escalona had a very happy childhood, and dreamed of becoming a painter or cartoonist, usually drawing funny depictions of classmates and teachers.
9.
Rafael Escalona grew up listening to peasants and troubadours of the region that often passed by the village bringing news from Valledupar and other regions, since there was no post office or other source of news that arrived at this isolated place.
10.
Rafael Escalona moved to Valledupar to attend high school at The Loperena National High School where he composed his first song at the age of fifteen in 1943 called "El profe Castaneda".
11.
Rafael Escalona wrote the song in honor and sadness of his favourite teacher being transferred to a school in Riohacha, his natural reaction was to dedicate a song to "el viejo Pedro" as he called him, since he grew up listening to local troubadours.
12.
In 1945, feeling bored and short of motivation for school, Rafael Escalona was transferred to a school in Barranquilla for a short period and then to the Celedon Lyceum High School in Santa Marta, where he composed "El Hambre del Liceo", complaining about the poor food quality that the school offered.
13.
Rafael Escalona became a partygoing "parrandero" and a heavy drinker of whiskey and rum.
14.
Rafael Escalona always departed with people from Patillal including Hernando Molina, husband of Consuelo Araujo.
15.
Rafael Escalona died on the afternoon May 13,2009, in Bogota, Colombia due to heart failure.
16.
Rafael Escalona had been interned for almost two weeks in the Santa Fe Clinic in Bogota and had been on a medical ventilator and unconscious earlier that day.