He became interested in indigenous music at an early age. The local barber taught him how to play the guitar when he was 11.
His first recording was "La Vidala del Nombrador" in 1950. Over the next ten years, he became popular as a performer in France, the Soviet Union, and especially Japan, where he played more than 200 gigs.
He wrote hundreds of compositions that often drew on Latin American poetry and literature. He set to music poems by Jorge Luis Borges and Manuel Castilla.
Composing ... there is nothing more beautiful and difficult. I wander and wander with the guitar until that moment I am waiting for arrives. One has to be ready to grasp inspiration from the air because it is very elusive and can slip away so easily.