Paco De Lucia

Few instrumentalists coming from a different universe altogether, be it jazz or, in this case, flamenco, can boast such a significant influence on pop and rock music, let alone a fanbase among some of the most prominent names in those genres. With admiring colleagues of the calibre of Eric Clapton, Mark Knopfler and Steve Howe, just to name a few of the more obvious ones, Paco de Lucía – born Francisco Sánchez Gómez – is undoubtedly one of them. So much so that he's often referred to as a guitar hero, on a par with the names mentioned above.

It's the recognition owed to a figure fundamental to the history of Andalusian, and by extension Spanish, music and culture. It's no exaggeration to say that the worldwide spread of flamenco is at least in part down to the work of the guitarist from Algeciras, who not only helped the genre travel beyond the Iberian border but also redefined its boundaries and codified its modern version.

De Lucía's flamenco combines the teachings of the schools of Niño Ricardo and Sabicas (two of the greatest flamenco guitarists, as well as forerunners of his style) with a passion for jazz and for Caribbean, Brazilian, Turkish and Arabic music. It's therefore an approach devoted to the tradition of Andalusia's gitano community, yet at the same time flexible and open to borrowing foreign idioms, melodic structures and techniques, which he then bent to his own expressive needs. All of this was of course made possible by de Lucía's outstanding technique, distilled into a style that was vigorous, fast, extremely precise on the fretboard and yet deeply melodramatic.

Besides his commitment to exporting flamenco abroad, it's also thanks to the inherent internationalism of his sound that de Lucía achieved such widespread acclaim.

Usually regarded as his masterpiece, "Fuente Y Caudal" is the album that brings his revolution to completion. By the time de Lucía recorded it, he wasn't yet known abroad, but within flamenco circles he was already a legend.

The guitarist began making a name for himself back in the mid-Sixties, when he released a few two-guitar works with Ricardo Modrego (the most notable being "Dos guitarras flamencas en stereo" from 1964 and "12 canciones de García Lorca para 2 guitarras en stereo" the following year), as well as "Canciones andaluzas para 2 guitarras" in 1967, alongside his brother Ramón de Algeciras. Fame arrived, however, thanks to countless performances up and down Spain, coinciding with the release of his first solo works, such as "La fabulosa guitarra de Paco de Lucía" in 1967 and "Fantasia flamenca" in 1969. Between those two records, in 1968, he also took part in the landmark album "Flamenco Jazz", in which, backing saxophonist Pedro Iturralde, he began shuffling the deck of his flamenco technique and blazing fascinating new trails.

Another important piece of the puzzle is the collaboration, between 1969 and 1972, with Camarón de la Isla, which produced four albums: the first three share the same credit, namely "El Camarón de la Isla con la colaboración especial de Paco de Lucía", while the fourth is titled "Canastera". This partnership, one of the most important in the history of flamenco — Camarón and de Lucía being, respectively, the genre's most iconic singer and guitarist — gave rise to interpretations that have since become canonical works of the genre. Although disputes over record royalties and copyright drove the duo apart, after Camarón's death from lung cancer in 1992 a devastated de Lucía declared that "Camarón was a person and an artist I will never be able to forget. He will be inside me until I die", testament to a deep and meaningful artistic marriage.

Like other events that bring about great change, "Fuente y caudal" (trans. "Source and Flow") also came about almost by chance, specifically to honor the recording contract with Fonogram (the Spanish affiliate of Philips), which called for a new de Lucía album by 1973. He thus went into the studio having prepared only one track, the taranta (a typical flamenco palo) that gives the album its title. The remaining seven compositions arose spontaneously instead, during a series of recording sessions organized as improvisations.

Nevertheless, the Andalusian guitarist, at that point in the full technical maturity of his career and curious about elements outside his own world, managed to turn them into exercises brimming with melody, warmth and virtuosity. Such a momentum could only flow — to use a verb in keeping with the fluvial nature of its title — into one of the masterpieces of flamenco.

The perfect synthesis is embodied by the track that opens the album, and the one that brought de Lucía everlasting fame and recognition: "Entre dos aguas". It's a rumba with a deceptively simple opening, where the aforementioned palo, related precisely to Cuban rumba, incorporates exotic elements such as the bongos, played by Peruvian percussionist Pepe Ébano (known for introducing elements of his country's criolla music into flamenco). A plucked section and a section of vigorous strumming, which almost recalls the power chords of rock music, follow one another, enchanting and captivating. De Lucía's hands, spurred on by increasingly insistent bongo strikes, go faster and faster, in a kind of crescendo that, despite the impressive technical display, never loses its romanticism.

With the exception of the bulerías palo, which appears twice, every track on "Fuente y caudal" belongs to a different flamenco canon. So, after the rumba that opens the album, the fandangos de Huelva "Aires Choqueros" brings us back to Andalusia through its hypnotic guitar figure and the traditional handclaps and castanets.

Equally passionate, the following "Reflejo de luna" soars, melancholic and sinuous: the guitar, following the conventions of the granaína (a palo typical of the city of Granada), moves unaccompanied and bears the strong imprint of ancient Arabic influences.

The first side of the album closes with the poignant "Solea", in which the odd meters of the bulerías — a palo in twelve-beat cycles, accented on beats 3, 6, 8, 10 and 12 — meet an equally captivating development. Not entirely absent, as in the previous track, the percussion here is nonetheless limited to fleeting strikes on the back of the guitar.

The second side of the album is likewise marked by a remarkable range of moods, moving from romantic and nostalgic tones to more festive and convivial ones. It opens again with the taranta brimming with spleen, "Fuente Y Caudal", perhaps the most technically elusive track on the whole album, where de Lucía's arpeggios cascade steeply down the guitar's lowest, tightest strings, making them vibrate as if made of crystal and setting off an unstoppable sense of nostalgia. His fingers fly just as fast on "Cepa andalusa", but this time they're backed by flamenco's customary rhythmic apparatus of handclaps, foot-stomps and castanets. The mood turns even more joyful on the following "Los pinares", a wild tango bolstered by his brother Ramón (already the rhythm guitarist on "Entre dos aguas").

Closing the tracklist is the alegrías "Plaza de San Juan", another rigorous display of technique that manages to enchant with guitar flourishes full of pathos, as unpredictable as they are, suddenly changing direction and rhythm.

The album was produced and supervised by José Torregrosa, Fonogram's manager. Unbeknownst to de Lucía, however, his collaborator registered himself as co-author of all the tracks with Sgae, the Spanish society for the protection of authors' rights. It was only in March 2023 that Lucía Sánchez Valera, the guitarist's daughter, managed to win a lengthy legal battle and restore to her father the exclusive ownership of the compositions.

"Fuente y caudal" reached shops in November 1973, with a fairly modest print run, since flamenco held little commercial appeal at the time. In 1974, however, manager Jesús Quintero convinced the record label to release "Entre dos aguas" as a single, and the song achieved unexpected radio airplay. The album was hastily reissued and, on December 2nd of that year, reached number 1 on the Spanish chart, where it stayed for 17 consecutive weeks: a record no instrumental flamenco album had ever achieved before, and one that still stands today.

De Lucía's career would go on to triumph, marked by internationally prestigious collaborations, continuing to demonstrate how the flamenco guitar, beyond representing Gypsy and Andalusian tradition, had by then become a universal language, capable of tackling classical music (his celebrated 1991 reinterpretations of Joaquín Rodrigo's "Concierto de Aranjuez" and Isaac Albéniz's "Iberia") and of hybridizing with the most disparate idioms, from jazz fusion (consider the three trio albums with Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin) to the folk music of distant cultures (Greek singer George Dalaras co-credited him on the 1987 live album "Zontanés ichografíseis"), all the way to pop (he would play several times for Brazilian singer-songwriter Djavan, and in 1990 also for Claudio Baglioni, on the track "Domani mai", from the album "Oltre").

Paco de Lucía died of a heart attack on February 25, 2014, in Mexico, while on holiday.

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22/10/2023