When we Costa Ricans think of music from Guanacaste, we tend to recall certain standard songs typical of school functions, all having the same rhythm and seasoned with a measure of marimba and someone breaking in at intervals to shout, “Bomba!” This is why, after hearing these songs of Max Goldenberg and Odilón Juárez, most Ticos outside the province imagine they come from anywhere in the world except Guanacaste. Behind the bullfighting songs come a pasillo, then a little waltz, and then a “retahíla” (a tune that connects many seemingly unrelated ideas, producing images with a double meaning.) Farther along in the material, there is a bolero, then a corrido, followed by a kind of foxtrot and even a danzón with Brazilian touches. It’s as if the guitars of Max and Odilón have absorbed something from all the music passing through the tawny meadows of Guanacaste over the past hundred years. They have followed in the footsteps of Adán Guevara, J...