On Thursday, August 28, 2014, the musician and composer Álvaro Velásquez Balcázarknown for being the creator of the famous salsa song ‘El Preso’, performed by the group Fruko y sus Tesos.
Velásquez died at the age of 68 in his home located in El Poblado, Medellín, due to suffering from end-stage lung cancer. However, before he passed away, he revealed that his hit song ‘El preso’, although it was recorded as a salsa, it was written to be sung in vallenato.
“Hey, I’m talking to you from prison,
Wilson Manyoma…
In the world that I live in
There are always four corners.
But between corners there will always be the same
For me there is no heaven, neither moon nor stars
For me the sun does not shine, for me everything is darkness.
Oh, oh, oh, how black is my destiny…
Oh, oh, oh, all of me move away…
Oh, oh, oh, I lost all hope…
Oh God, only my complaints arrive”, says the intro and first verse of the song.
‘El preso’ became not only the most acclaimed hit for Fruko y sus Tesos, but also a referent of the Colombian salsa genre of the 20th century.
“The song was inspired by a friend who was sentenced to 30 years in prison for drug trafficking”, Velásquez told bassist Julio Ernesto Estrada, leader of the group Fruko y sus Tesos, before giving him the letter in January 1975.
The song was recorded within a few weeks by Wilson Saoco. In addition to ‘The prisoner’, the LP included ten more songs: ‘Manyoma’, ‘If I found a love’, ‘Wild Flowers’, ‘Los puddles’, ‘Beloved come’, ‘I saw her leave’, ‘Confused’, ‘A party with Ochún’, ‘They had me tied up with P’ and ‘Bird’.
