Leandro Diaz

Leandro Díaz was born in 1928 in Hatonuevo, a town in the Colombian plains. He lost his sight at eighteen during a smallpox outbreak. That didn't stop him from writing songs about the landscape and people around him, working mostly by ear and memory.

His best-known song is 'La Diosa Coronada,' which came from seeing a woman wearing a crown of flowers. The melody is simple and haunting, and the lyrics carry that plainspoken admiration. It became a standard in Colombian folk music, one of those tunes people know even if they don't know who wrote it.

Díaz recorded more than thirty albums over his life, mostly singing about ordinary things, love, hardship, the land. He was sometimes called 'The Troubadour of the Poor' because his songs spoke plainly about working people's lives. He kept writing and performing into his later years, a familiar voice from the plains.