Agustín Lara (born Ángel Agustín María Carlos Fausto Mariano Alfonso del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús Lara y Aguirre del Pino, 30 October 1897 – 6 November 1970) was a Mexican composer and performer of songs and boleros, born in Tlacotalpan, Veracruz, and raised largely in Mexico City’s Coyoacán district after his family relocated there. He began working in Mexico City cabarets in the late 1920s, and from 1928 worked as composer and accompanist for tenor Juan Arvizu before launching a successful radio career in 1930 that ran alongside songwriting for films such as Santa (1932). His fame spread through Mexico, Central and South America, and eventually Spain, where dictator Francisco Franco gave him a house in Granada in 1965 in gratitude for Lara’s songs celebrating Spanish themes; he wrote more than 700 songs over his career and died in Mexico City in 1970 following a fall that fractured his pelvis.

Lara is recognized as one of the most popular Latin American songwriters of the 20th century, whose boleros and canciones — including “Granada,” “Solamente una vez” (“You Belong to My Heart”), and “Piensa en mí” — were recorded internationally by artists including Enrico Caruso, Mario Lanza, and José Carreras, and domestically by Pedro Vargas, Pedro Infante, and Toña la Negra, among many others. His 1958 bolero album Rosa has been ranked among the top 25 albums in the history of Latin American music, and his songs — especially “Granada,” later a signature tune for tenors including José Carreras and Plácido Domingo — carried his melodies from the cabarets of Mexico City into the world’s leading opera houses.

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agust%C3%ADn_Lara
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Granada_(song)