October 21, 2024, 5:39 PM
October 21, 2024, 5:39 PM
The Colombian singer-songwriter Carlos Vives remembered his accordionist Egidio Cuadrado, who died this Monday in Bogotá at the age of 71, as a happy, authentic and charismatic “compadre” who leaves a great legacy for Vallenato music.
“He always had a few words to make you laugh, a song to make you laugh and he always said that (of) my marriages (the one) that had lasted the longest was with him,” Vives said in statements to journalists about his former partner. scene for three decades.
Egidio Cuadrado, born on February 15, 1953 in the town of Villanueva, in the Caribbean department of La Guajira, was admitted to the Colombia Clinic in Bogotá after suffering a relapse of pneumonia that had affected him at the beginning of the year.
“I want to remember him with joy because I have already cried a lot and it seems that we are not done mourning him. I did not imagine reaching a day like this, having to talk about my friend and being asked to dig up or rescue memories has been something very strong,” he added. You live.
Egidio Cuadrado became known in the musical universe when he was crowned king vallenato at the Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata in 1985 and eight years later, in 1993, he accompanied Vives with the accordion as the protagonist of the soap opera ‘Escalona’, inspired by the life of the composer Rafael Escalona.
“When I made ‘Escalona’ I chose Egidio and there were many accordionists. In the end it was our experiences, my trips with him, sharing time with him, talking and understanding that he was an accordionist who was not seen at that time as the most virtuous, but he was in connection with the earth,” he added.
From that telenovela the band La Provincia was born and the following year they released ‘Clásicos de La Provincia’, a compilation of vallenato songs that turned this music from northern Colombia into a sales phenomenon inside and outside the country.
A man of the people
“He was very natural. He was from the town and felt very proud to be from his town, and for me, looking to the left and seeing on my side a farmer picking coffee (Egidio), looking on the other side where Teto was (Ernesto Ocampo), who played the guitar and looked like a rocker (…) it was a moment of happiness,” he said.
Ocampo died a year ago, on September 27, 2023 and, after the death of Egidio Cuadrado, Carlos Vives assured today that he thinks “that La Provincia has died”, as it has been known until now.
“Everyone who came to La Provincia has contributed something to the new generations and my friend was that,” Vives added about Egidio.
Carlos Vives, who won several Grammy and Latin Grammy awards with Egidio Cuadrado, recalled that at first they argued “about musical issues”, trying to find a modern style for the vallenatos of La Provincia, but both were convinced “that we could not deviate from that beautiful peasant origin that our music has”.
“Cuadrado was an undisputed ambassador of Colombian folklore and leader of the sound of the vallenato genre with his unforgettable accordion, with which he accompanied the project of La Provincia, Carlos Vives’ group, for nearly 30 years,” lamented the Grammy academy.
successful careers
‘Clásicos de la Provincia’, their first album together, included songs such as ‘La gota frida’, ‘El cantor de Fonseca’, ‘Alicia adorada’, ‘Amor sensible’ and ‘Matilde Lina’, among others.
Then came another dozen albums, such as ‘La tierra del olvido’, ‘tiene fe’, ‘Clásicos de La Provincia II’ and ‘Corazón profundo’, and the couple of Vives and Cuadrado, always accompanied by the vueltiao hat and the backpack arhuaca that he was carrying, he walked around the stages of the world.
“His legacy for Colombians is his authenticity, his pride in being Colombian and how he projected himself from his little Villanueva and became a Colombian loved everywhere. He liked to go to the Santanders, go to the south, to Antioquia. That they loved him “He was very proud of that,” he said.
Other artists also mourned the death of Egidio Cuadrado today, among them Juanes, who thanked him “for the joy and for having made Colombian music so great.”
“We mourn the death of Egidio Cuadrado, king of vallenato in 1985 and one of the great exponents of the new sounds of Colombian folklore. Together with Carlos Vives and La Provincia he was one of those responsible for bringing vallenato music and tradition to the whole world. “We honor his memory and his legacy,” stated the Ministry of Culture in a message on its X account.
