Flamenco Legends: Carmen Amaya, Paco de Lucía and Camarón de la Isla
During the 20th century, flamenco made a leap in quality and professionalization that took it to another level and gave it the shape we know today. It moved out of homes and families, first into the flamenco cafés, then into tablaos (flamenco venues) and theaters. It traveled from Andalusia to Spain’s major cities, and from there it spread around the world: France, Argentina, Mexico, the United States, Japan… To make that journey and win over fans everywhere, flamenco needed several ambassadors who carried it, born in flamenco families in the corners of southern Spain, to the top of the world’s most iconic stages.
Carmen Amaya: Gitano Dance in the Big Apple
Carmen Amaya reached Madrid after working her way through every flamenco venue that stood out in Barcelona’s nightlife. In Spain’s flamenco circles she was already being talked about as a major rising talent, but the real breakthrough came across the pond. Based in Buenos Aires, she won over the stages of Argentina, Mexico, Brazil… until she took the big American step: New York. There she won over critics and audiences alike, and confirmed that flamenco had plenty of room to grow in a city that was emerging as the capital of the world. She was not the only one to build a legendary career in the United States: Sabicas, Faíco and Antonia Mercé “La Argentina” were also recognized there.
At the time, Spain started to take an interest in projecting itself and selling itself to the rest of the world, and found in flamenco a distinctive, picturesque trademark on which to build the idea of Spain is different. In the heat of that export of national folklore, several more legends were born who, while not performing orthodox flamenco, drew from it and built their image with it. The clearest example is Lola Flores. Born in Jerez de la Frontera, she started very young on the stages of bars and taverns in her hometown. She began with copla (Spanish popular song) and ended up forming a historic duo with her husband, Antonio González “el Pescaílla,” and together they took the flamenco rumba to another level.
Camarón de la Isla: More Than a Legend
He stood out as a singer from childhood in his hometown, San Fernando, especially at the Venta de Vargas, a venue steeped in flamenco history. It was there that the legend of a blond gitano (Spanish Romani) took hold, one who sang para partirse la camisa, as if he were about to tear his shirt open. From Cádiz he jumped to Madrid and conquered the tablaos, above all Torres Bermejas, where he spent several years in the resident company of singers, guitarists and dancers. There he met his great partner and legendary duo: the other great legend of flamenco, this time on the guitar (the toque), Paco de Lucía. With him he recorded nine “de pizarra” albums (classic cantes, accompanied only by guitar and palmas, or handclaps), but his breakthrough came with the album La leyenda del tiempo. Rejected and criticized at first for blending flamenco with other genres and with instruments foreign to orthodox flamenco, over the years it became, for many, the best flamenco album in history. His later hits Como el agua and Soy gitano confirmed him as a kind of god of flamenco. His premature death at 41 left the music world devastated, and today no one disputes that he was the greatest flamenco singer (cantaor) of the contemporary era. In 2000 he received, posthumously, the Llave de Oro del Cante (the Golden Key of Flamenco Singing).
Paco de Lucía: Flamenco Goes Global
Born in Algeciras and introduced to the guitar at a very young age, he learned from the great masters of the toque of the day: Niño Ricardo, whom he was able to learn from in person, and Sabicas, whose records reached Paco’s home. In his first outings his loyal partner was his brother, Ramón de Algeciras. With him he toured the Americas, still very young, with the company of dancer José Greco. After establishing himself in the tablaos and through the nine albums with Camarón, his surge in popularity came with the great hit Entre dos aguas in 1973. This landmark rumba reached number 1 in sales in Spain and made him the first flamenco guitarist to give a solo concert at the Teatro Real in Madrid.
Paco’s restlessness led him to take an interest in other kinds of music and open up to them. Under the umbrella of what was beginning to be called flamenco jazz, came one of the works that international audiences liked most: the album Friday Night in San Francisco. It was recorded live at one of the many concerts he gave with two jazz giants, Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin. Paco also formed a sextet with which he kept exploring new sounds, bringing in musicians trained in other disciplines, such as Carles Benavent, Jorge Pardo and Rubem Dantas. It was with this sextet that one of the biggest contributions of Paco’s career to flamenco arrived: the Peruvian cajón (a box-shaped percussion instrument) as a flamenco instrument. Throughout this period of artistic openness he never lost sight of classical Spanish music, with recordings such as Joaquín Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez or the album Canción andaluza.
He died of a heart attack in 2014, at the age of 66, leaving one of the most important legacies in Spanish and world music and establishing flamenco as a rich, living and universal music.
