First Years

Diomedes Díaz was born and raised on a farm called “Carrizal” on the outskirts of La Junta Township that belongs to the Municipality of San Juan del Cesar, La Guajira. His father, Rafael María Díaz, and his mother, Elvira Maestre, were poor. His childhood was spent helping his parents and eight brothers with farm duties, while he was musically influenced by his locally renowned uncle, Martín Elías.[9]

First compositions

According to the journalist Alberto Salcedo Ramos, when Diomedes was a child, he acted as a scarecrow to protect the cornfields from birds and, to avoid getting bored, he sang and exchanged songs as a barter with indigenous people from the neighboring farm in exchange for coffee.[10]

Diomedes’ first love, a young woman named Helida, was the one who inspired him to compose his first songs.[9] Diomedes was also trying to dabble in singing, but by way of derision, he obtained the nickname “El chivato” (the little goat) for his voice during puberty.[11][12] He also learned to play the guacharaca and sing verses.[13] Eventually, his uncle decided to help him train his voice and compose songs; Diomedes mastered his vocal training and was invited to perform at parties. From Carrizal, he was taken to Villanueva to study in elementary school at the “Liceo Colombia”. During his stay in Villanueva, a childhood friend accidentally stoned him in the right eye while trying to get mangoes from a tree, he lost sight in the affected eye.[14][15]

Diomedes worked as a gardener to help with his livelihood, and then, dropped out of his studies to be a messenger for the Radio Guatapurí station with Manuel Pineda Bastidas being the manager, who gave him a bicycle to run errands for him, but Diomedes never learned to use it.[16][17] He alternated his job with his studies at the “Colegio Nacional Loperena”, night shift, where he finished the penultimate grade.[9]

Diomedes’ intention of working at Radio Guatapurí was, once inside, to make friends with the announcers and Disc jockeys so that they could play the album that contained his song “La negra”, which had recently been recorded by Luciano Poveda and Jorge Quiroz. Diomedes stayed on Radio Guatapurí for eight months, but due to delaying running errands because of not knowing how to ride the bicycle, he was dismissed.[17]

From his friendship with Rafael Orozco, came the recording of the song “Cariñito de mi vida“, which consolidated Diomedes as a composer and Orozco as a singer along with the accordionist Emilio Oviedo.[18] Through a greeting in the song “Cariñito de mi vida”, Rafael Orozco coined and immortalized Diomedes the nickname “El Cacique de La Junta”.

Diomedes continued exercising several trades, but always trying to interact with vallenato artists, even working as a prop, picking up wires and adjusting the sound of the microphones of “Los Hermanos López group”. On the advice of his uncle Martín, Diomedes began to dabble in singing.[18] The accordionist of “Los Hermanos López”, Elberto López also allowed Diomedes to sing the last songs of their live performances.[18] In 1975, Jorge Oñate and Colacho Mendoza recorded the song “Razón Sentimental” for him on the album “Los dos amigos”.