Carlos Vives hails from Santa Marta, Colombia on the Caribbean coast. He was one of the artist’s Maira introduced me to months ago when I first moved in and she helped me download some Latin music. He is known for popularizing vallenato, a form of Spanish folk music. Vallenato is especially popular along the Caribbean coast, in places like Barranquilla and Cartagena, however it is also played in the crossover clubs of Medellin, and I’ve even seen a few clubs solely dedicated to the genre.
La Gota Fria is a track off of his breakthrough album, Clásicos de la Provincia.
Glad you’ve discovered Carlos Vives! he really brought Vallenato music to the latin charts when he broke out. The album you mention is really his best in my opinion. All of the songs on that are straight re-worked covers of classic colombian “vallenatos”. He released quite a few other albums subsequently, however most of them were newly written pop songs sung in Vallenato style. The album “El Amor de mi Tierra” (http://www.amazon.com/El-Amor-Tierra-Carlos-Vives/dp/B00001OH9X) really turned him into an international pop star even here in the U.S. I saw him play back in 2003 at Constitution Hall and it was quite a good show.
Leo