About Rafael Escalona

Rafael Calixto Escalona Martinez (born May 27, 1927 in Patillal, Cesar) is a Colombian composer and troubadour. He is known for being one of the most if not the most prominent vallenato music composer and troubadours of the genre and for being the co-founder of the Vallenato Legend Festival, along with Consuelo Araujo and Alfonso Lopez Michelsen. He is also a long time friend of writer 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.