The
poet Rafael Bolívar Coronado wrote the
words to
Alma Llanera, the famous
song of the
Venezuelan
cowboy. Coronado was born in Villa de Cura,
Aragua, on June 6, 1884. He died in 1924, in
Barcelona,
Spain.
He worked as a journalist for El Universal and other Venezuelan newspapers.
Strangely, Pedro Elías Gutiérrez, the composer of the
music to Alma Llanera is remembered and revered, while Coronado is nearly forgotten. It is as if we knew all
about John Stafford Smith, who wrote the music that was later used with the words of The Star Spangled Banner, but had forgotten the name of Francis Scott Keyes. But perhaps this has something to do with his odd love of aliases: in his life as a writer, he used over 600 pseudonyms.