Whatever I do, my sound will always be flamenco – because I am what I am
A while back we wrote a post about coleslaw – oh, and the amazing guitarist Paco de Lucía. He’s died of a heart attack, aged 66, on a beach in Mexico.
The mayor of his birth town – Algeciras in Andalucia – announced the news. The town may shut its shops and mourn quietly – or perhaps not – for two days. The mayor said about his death: ‘(it’s) an irreparable loss for the world of culture and for Andalucia’.
His father was a flamenco guitarist of Gypsy origin. Paco – Francisco Sanchez Gomez – took his stage name in honour of his mother, Lucia Gomes. He started playing at five and recently said in an interview: ‘I learned the guitar like a child learns to speak’.
He hooked up with the singer Camaron de la Isla, whose voice is often heard coming from open windows in Órgiva. Together they recorded albums in the 1970s, inspiring a ‘New Flamenco’ movement.
He recorded, and played on, dozens of albums. The first, in 1964, was Dos guitarras flamencas en stereo.
There’s no excuse for poodle-haired rock guitarists to play a 100 notes a second – it’s as unmusical as you can get – but when Paco did it, it was another thing.
It would be great to have seen him play.
News about his death (Grauniad newspaper) and the BBC.
Paco de Lucía on Wikipedia
Related posts:
Songs about Spain – The Caves of Altamira
© con jamón spain
con jamón spain 
Very sad. He played here, in Jimena, the year we first bought our house and we had booked flights to the UK and so we missed him…ah well.
Posted by Wendy Kate | February 26, 2014, 9:39 pmOh no, I didn’t know. We have his albums. V sad. SD
Posted by sandradan1 | February 26, 2014, 7:20 pm