In the mid-1950s, his first tour took place throughout Colombia, under the leadership of folklorists Manuel and Delia Zapata Olivella. In 1958, he made an international tour to China and Japan, and Russia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and other European countries. In 1968 they represented Colombia in the Cultural Olympic Games in Mexico. Their tours, the exceptional quality of their musicians across generations, and the fact that they are one of the few bagpipe ensembles whose music has been commercially successful, have made them the most important folklore group in Colombia.

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In 2007, Los Gaiteros de San Jacinto won the LATIN GRAMMY for Best Folk Album, the title of this album, Un Fuego de Sangre Pura, by the US government museum label Smithsonian Folkways Recording, an album that evokes the Current difficult and painful times in the Montes de María region, the home of many of the musicians on this recording.

The band is made up of Rafael Castro (lead vocals), Gabriel Torregrosa (Tambora - Director), Wilson Fontalvo (Happy drum), Adolfo Rodríguez (Call drum), Iván Salcedo (Female bagpipe), Luis Salcedo (Male bagpipe and maraca ), Javier Mutis MC.

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Through their own new compositions and teaching young musicians, LOS GAITEROS DE SAN JACINTO are a crucial link between traditional bagpipe and cumbia music and its contemporary renewal. Thanks in large part to them; Gaita music has become one of the most influential traditional music in contemporary Colombian popular music today. In the last 10 years the group has toured internationally constantly in countries such as the USA, Canada, Spain, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Mexico, Chile, Brazil.