Agustín Lara
Agustín Lara was the Mexico City songwriter-pianist who, working the cabarets and radio studios of 1920s-40s Mexico City, became the single most influential architect of the modern bolero romántico, writing several hundred songs — "Granada," "Solamente Una Vez," "Farolito," "Piensa en Mí" among them — that were adopted worldwide by singers far beyond Mexico. His own thin, nasal voice carried plenty of his own recordings too, but his real legacy was as the composer whose harmonic and lyrical template every bolero singer after him, from Javier Solís to Los Ángeles Negros, worked from.
By Lara's own account, it was hearing Guty Cárdenas's "Nunca" — a trova yucateca hit that reached Mexico City's nightspots after Cárdenas arrived there in 1926 — that showed him the clave-bolero rhythm he needed, directly inspiring the first bolero that put him on the road to success.
listen forThe gentle clave-bolero guitar pulse under a plainly sung, unornamented romantic melody — the rhythmic template Lara said he lifted straight from this song for his own breakthrough bolero.