Early life and education Adolfo Pacheco was born in
San Jacinto, Colombia on 8 August 1940. His parents were Miguel Pacheco Blanco and Mercedes Anillo Herrera. Pacheco was named after
Adolf Hitler, whose name was frequently heard by his parents on their radio around the time of his birth. Pacheco attended secondary school in
Ciénaga,
Magdalena. He studied
civil engineering for one year at
Universidad Javeriana in
Bogotá, but had to leave because his father, then responsible for 17 children with four women, could no longer afford to support him. Pacheco returned to San Jacinto and started working as a teacher, while playing music in his free time with friends Nasser Sir, Nelson Díaz,
Andrés Landero, and Ramón Vargas.
Career According to Pacheco, he was introduced to music by his paternal grandfather Laureano Antonio Pacheco Estrada, and his first composition was a called "Mazamorríta Cúa", written at the age of seven. In 1961 Pacheco recorded his
cumbia "Sabor de Gaita" for
Barranquilla record label Discos Tropical. By 1978 he had recorded nine
LPs and several
45s for Tropical and for
Discos Fuentes. Pacheco's best-known composition is the vallenato "La Hamaca Grande", which he first performed in San Jacinto in 1969. The song gained recognition when Andrés Landero performed it at the 1970
Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata. It has been recorded more than 30 times by artists including
Johnny Ventura,
Lisandro Meza,
Los Hermanos Zuleta, and
Carlos Vives. The "" in the opening line of the song refers to Pacheco's friend and collaborator Ramón Vargas. Alongside working as a musician, Pacheco also worked as a primary school teacher, a councillor in San Jacinto, a baseball player, a member of the
department assemblies of
Bolívar and
Atlántico for both the
Colombian Conservative Party and the
Colombian Liberal Party, and as director of the Bolívar Department of Transit. In 1976 he entered the
University of Cartagena to study law, graduating in 1983. In 2005 Pacheco was given the title "King for life" (Spanish: ) at the Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata.
Death On 19 January 2023 Pacheco was involved in a car accident while driving from San Jacinto to Barranquilla, and died nine days later on 28 January in a hospital in
Barranquilla. At the time of his death Pacheco had recorded fifteen songs that were to be released alongside his autobiography
Por los caminos de la Hamaca Grande, which was published by the
Simón Bolívar University. ==Musical style and themes==