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Rafael Escalona Colombian Folk Balladeer Dies

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Rafael Escalona, who absorbed the ways and wisdom of wandering troubadours to become a beloved writer of ballads that became classics of Colombia folk music and inspired the novelist Gabriel Garca Mrquez, died Wednesday in Bogot. He was 81.

The death was announced by the government of Colombia. Reports on the cause of death differed.

Mr. Escalona was a pioneering songwriter and singer of vallenato, the folk music of Colombias remote Caribbean region. The sound, driven by the plaintive wail of an accordion and raspy, often nostalgic voices, recalls Louisiana zydeco music. The vallenato which can mean all music in that style or a particular song goes back to the time when news, gossip and legends were passed by traveling minstrels.

It is a rough, whiskey-tinged sound with simple rhythms and tender lyrics that long fueled working-class celebrations. Now it has progressed from villages and shabby public buses to gleaming Bogot bars and beyond, becoming a vibrant part of todays global musical fusion.

Mr. Escalona, who helped bring the music to its new level of popularity, saw himself as rooted in the musics humble past. He never learned to play a musical instrument.

I dont have a band, he said in an interview with World Music Central in 2006. I only sing with my friends at night while we party. I dont make a living from music. Im a cotton farmer and rancher on the northern coast of Colombia since I was a child. I like to work.

I compose vallenatos in a different style, he added, sort of like musical chronicles like the gentleman that crashed his cart, or the farmer that fell off his horse and broke his leg.

Many of his songs became national classics. One was The House in the Sky, in which he pledges to the love of his life that he will put up a big sign, framed by white clouds, that says Ada Luz.

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