Rafael Escalona

Rafael Calixto Escalona Martínez (27 May 1927 – 13 May 2009) was a Colombian songwriter. He is considered one of the best vallenato songwriters of all time, though he could not play an instrument and rarely sang. He was a co-founder of the Vallenato Legend Festival, along with Consuelo Araújo and Alfonso López Michelsen. Escalona was a long-time friend of Gabriel García Márquez, who mentions him in One Hundred Years of Solitude, and described him as "the intellectual of vallenato."