Crescencio Salcedo

Crescencio Salcedo Monroy (1913–1976) was a Colombian flautist and songwriter. He wrote notable songs including "El Año Viejo" in several tropical music genres, and was admired by Gabriel García Márquez.

Biography Salcedo was born on 27 August 1913 in Palomino, a district of Pinillos in the Colombian department of Bolívar. His parents were Lucas Salcedo and Belén Monroy, and he had five siblings. As a child Salcedo learned to play and make flutes, and he did not attend school but was taught various trades by his maternal grandfather Telésforo Monroy.

As a young man Salcedo worked as a merchant and sailor on the Magdalena River. When his grandfather died he moved to La Guajira, where he lived for 8 years with indigenous people and became a . After living in , Venezuela, he spent time in Santa Marta, Barranquilla, Cartagena, Sincelejo, Montería, and Bogotá, selling flutes on the streets, before settling in Medellín in the mid-1960s. In his memoir Living to Tell the Tale, Gabriel García Márquez describes watching Salcedo perform in Barranquilla:

Salcedo wrote several popular songs, including "El Año Viejo", but recorded only rarely. His albums include Tipicismo, published by Codiscos in the 1960s, and a few albums for Discos Tropical and with Los Indios Selectos, a group comprising Salcedo, Alberto Pacheco, Ángel Martínez, and Tadeo Fuentes.

Salcedo died on 3 March 1976 in Medellín of cerebral thrombosis. Shortly before his death, Colombian poet Manuel Hernández had encountered him selling flutes on the streets and convinced Artesanías de Colombia to buy some of them.

Personal life According to Salcedo, he never married and had five children: Rafael, Santiago, Francisco, Martín and Ramón.

Musical style and compositions Salcedo wrote over 100 songs in various styles including paseo, puya, cumbia, porro, merengue, and pasillo. His first composition was "El Gusto de las Mujeres", which he wrote in 1928, and his first commercial success was the cumbia "Cosquillas", which he recorded for RCA Victor in 1939.

Several of Salcedo's songs became very well-known, but he rarely recorded them, and was often reluctant to claim ownership. His most famous composition is "El Año Viejo", which was notably recorded by Mexican singer , who first heard it in Venezuela. He also claimed to have written "La Múcura", but José Pinilla Aguilar writes in Cultores de la Música Colombiana that the melody was probably already folklore before Salcedo's birth. Similarly, Pinilla Aguilar claims that "El Hombre Caimán", often attributed to Salcedo (and later adapted by José María Peñaranda into the song "Se Va el Caimán"), was probably written by Daniel Lemaitre.

Salcedo wrote the lyrics to "Mi Cafetal", but according to Marcial Marchena Marín, "by 1939 this music was already known on the coast under the name of "Se Marchitaron las Flores", and Andrés Paz Barros was considered the author...Crescencio set the lyrics to the melody of Paz Barros." The song "La Varita de Caña" is also sometimes attributed to Salcedo, but according to Marchena Marín, "the people from the coast say that it was created by Julio Sobrino."

Other notable compositions by Salcedo include "Santa Marta y Cartagena" (a porro that was at one point claimed by an Argentine called Nóbile), "La Mano Descompuesta", "La Puerca Pollera", "Nació para Presidente", and "Colombia con Venezuela".