Vallenato originally comes from Caribbean coast of Colombia. The word itself means “born in the valley," which in this case is located between the snowy mountains of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta and the Serranía de Perijá on the border with Venezuela. Vallenato is also the name of the people from the city of Valledupar, where this genre originated and the home of the annual Vallenato Legend Festival every April, in which competitions to discover the best new performers and composers of the music are held.
Vallenato originated from farmers keeping the tradition of Spanish troubadours who traveled playing instruments, singing, and telling stories, mixed with the griot oral storyteller and musical tradition brought over with the slaves from West Africa. Cattle farmers had to travel so that their cows could graze, or to sell their animals at the market. To keep themselves entertained during these trips, they played guitars and the indigenous-derived gaita flute. The constant traveling made them “news broadcasters” of events in other towns in the time before mass communication, and oftentimes the farmers would sing their messages to transmit the news, giving vallenato lyrics a very literal quality that endures even today.
There are three traditional instruments in a typical Vallenato ensemble. The caja vallenata is a small drum similar to a tambora made of wood and cowskin, and played with bare hands like bongos. It arrived from Africa with the slave trade. The rest of the percussion is provided by the guacharaca, which is a ribbed wooden stick accompanied by a fork. When rubbed together they make a scraping sound. This instrument was used by the local indigenous tribes to imitate the song of the guacharaco, a bird from the region, so that it could be hunted. Finally, there is the accordion. According to an old story, a boat full of accordions en route to Argentina once got shipwrecked off the shore of Colombia, and once they were found by the locals they changed the face of Colombian music forever. This is probably not true, but it feels true, which is enough in Colombia. Put all three instruments together, and you have a party ready to start.
Lately, La Nueva Ola (The New Wave) of vallenato has swept through every region of Colombia to become the most popular type of music in the country. The traditional instruments have been augmented with guitars and bass, and the rhythms owe a debt to rock music and tropical pop. A vallenato purist would scowl, but this kind of combination is now the reigning type of pop music in Colombia, and in nearly every region as well. The indisputable king of this type of vallenato is Silvestre Dangond, whose “Me Gusta, Me Gusta” I probably heard more than any other song when I was in Colombia.
Vallenato is very difficult for gringos to get into. At the beginning, you hear that accordion in every song, thinking all vallenato songs sound the same, and you associate the accordion with polka, Weird Al Yankovic, and Steve Urkel. It took a few months before I could really tell the songs apart, and part of the problem is the cheesy stuff that’s popular now is not as good as the music from a few decades ago, sort of like what’s happened with North American rock and roll. To help point you in the right direction, I have put some of my favorite vallenato songs, singers, and albums below, so that you can listen to the good stuff right off the bat.
30 Grandes Éxitos by Diomedes Diaz
Clásicos de la Provincia by Carlos Vives
For a brief time in the 90s, Carlos Vives managed to popularize vallenato outside of Colombia by being a handsome actor in a telenovela portraying the life of famed vallento composer Rafael Escalona. It also didn’t hurt that he jazzed the music up a bit by combining it with rock guitars and big synthesized beats. So yeah, this is miles away from the wandering farmer delivering the news, but it also got millions of people through Latin America interested in a very specifically Colombian musical genre, and is great fun to sing off-key when you’ve had too much aguardiente to drink. Clasicos de la Provincia is a great first disc to see if there is anything you might like about vallenato at all, because it will ease you into the genre with familiar rock and pop rhythms, making it a little easier to swallow than a five-minute accordion solo.
Ayombe! The Heart of Colombia´s Musica Vallenata by Various Artists
This compilation has to be one of the best vallenato recordings out there from an audio quality standpoint. Put together by the Smithsonian Museum’s record label, every instrument on this album seems to have been miked individually, for a well-rounded sound that lets you hear every scrape of the guacharaca and every note of the rubbery bass underpinning every song. The stellar group of musicians on this album includes former Vallenato Legend Festival champion and “Me Gusta, Me Gusta” composer Omar Geles.
El Cantinero by Silvestre Dangond and Juancho de la Espriella
Ah, what the hell. This guy is corny enough to host a game show on Colombian television, but there’s no denying that his songs are everywhere these days. “La Tartamuda” (The Stutterer) is a catchy song about a guy who catches his girlfriend kissing another dude, and when he confronts her, all she can do is stutter and stew in her guilt at having been caught red-handed.
¡Juepa je!, and I hope you think vallenato sucks a little bit less because of this post.
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