10 Years on, the Legend of Flamenco Icon Paco de Lucia Lives On

Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, whose talent revolutionised flamenco and brought it to the world stage, died on February 25, 2014. RAFA RIVAS / AFP/File
Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, whose talent revolutionised flamenco and brought it to the world stage, died on February 25, 2014. RAFA RIVAS / AFP/File
TT

10 Years on, the Legend of Flamenco Icon Paco de Lucia Lives On

Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, whose talent revolutionised flamenco and brought it to the world stage, died on February 25, 2014. RAFA RIVAS / AFP/File
Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, whose talent revolutionised flamenco and brought it to the world stage, died on February 25, 2014. RAFA RIVAS / AFP/File

Spanish guitar legend Paco de Lucia, who died 10 years ago on Sunday, couldn't read music but his talent revolutionized flamenco, causing its popularity to spread around the world.
Wherever he played, he filled theaters and concert halls around the world, from London to New York, Paris and Moscow, San Francisco and Tokyo, shattering the image of flamenco as something complex and only of interest to a fringe audience.
"Flamenco was always marginalized in Spain because it was the music of gypsies, of Andalusians, of poor and working-class people," he once said, referring to the southern Andalusia region where was born and raised.
But his virtuosity brought the dramatic rhythms and passion of flamenco to the most prestigious music halls and this week, the main tribute event was held in New York's Carnegie Hall, bringing together the world's best flamenco artists with others like Panamanian salsa legend Ruben Blades.
The secret of de Lucia's success was his capacity "to make beautiful melodies and then dress these up with the best harmonies," guitarist Jose Carlos Gomez told AFP in the southern port town of Algeciras.
"That's why Paco is so popular both with music connoisseurs and ordinary people."
He died of a heart attack on February 25, 2014 at the age of 66 while he was "playing with his children on the beach" at Playa del Carmen in the Mexican Caribbean where he had a house, reflecting his love of the sea, swimming and fishing.
Such were the passions he had growing up in Algeciras where he was born in 1947, spending his childhood in places like El Rinconcillo beach where AFP met Gomez, a close friend of the family, whose own latest album "Las Huellas de Dios" ("God's Fingerprints") is a tribute to his idol.
It was here that de Lucia used to frequent a beachfront bar called Casa Bernardo where he would drink beer and eat fried fish, which inspired him to write a rumba by the same name.
' Born to play guitar'
Born Francisco Sanchez Gomez to a Portuguese mother and a Spanish father, he was known as Paco -- the short form of Francisco -- "de Lucia" meaning "of Lucia", his mother.
Growing up in a gypsy neighborhood, it was his father, also a guitarist, who introduced him to music and encouraged him to practice for hours.
When he was eight, his father put a guitar in his hands and told him: "I can't send you to school, I can't teach you a career, the only thing I can give you is this guitar," he once said in an interview. The same thing happened to his brothers, Ramon and Pepe, who also went on to have careers in flamenco.
De Lucia took to it so well that it was as if he had "been born to play the guitar," says Gomez, saying he was such a natural that he could concentrate on experimenting and composing more than others.
By the time he was 12, he was earning at flamenco "tablaos" -- the intimate bars that are home to the authentic form of the tragic gypsy lament and dancing. Despite having no formal training, he moved to Madrid at 15 and by 18 had released his first album.
He was the first flamenco artist to obtain a chart topper with his instrumental rumba "Entre dos aguas" which was released in 1973 and saw him bringing flamenco closer to jazz with a sextet including wind instruments and an electric bass, in a major break with tradition.
Also revolutionary was his introduction of a cajon, a Peruvian box drum instead of two or three palmeros (rhythmic clappers) which made flamenco "more acoustic" and "more intimate in terms of staging", explains top percussionist Paquito Gonzalez who recorded an album with him.
'Orphaned by his death'
When de Lucia played in Madrid's Teatro Real in 1975, it stoked controversy for being the first flamenco performance in the Spanish capital's prestigious opera house, but also because he played with crossed legs rather than the traditional posture with the guitar resting on one leg, steeply angled upwards.
He was like "one of those explorers with a machete in hand who went into the Amazon and began cutting down branches and making a path," guitarist Jose Quevedo 'Bolita' told AFP at Pena La Buena Gente, a club in Jerez de la Frontera that draws flamenco fans, of which there are many across Andalusia.
And it was after one drunken night in Jerez that de Lucia and the singer Camaron de la Isla decided to work together, going on to produce several legendary albums.
When Paco de Lucía "became a global star, almost without realizing it, he created what is now the flamenco industry", says Quevedo.
"It was a total turning point which brought about the 'professionalization' of flamenco, creating a more rewarding life for many artists", he said.
And when he died, "the flamenco world felt very orphaned", says dancer Monika Bellido who runs a flamenco academy in Algeciras.
"The whole world loved Paco."



How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
TT

How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Paris broke with tradition on Friday by turning the Olympic Opening Ceremony into a parade down the River Seine rather than a stadium-based show.

TV viewers around the world were treated to a spectacle performed on bridges, the riverbank and rooftops, culminating with French athletes Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner lighting the Olympic cauldron and a performance from Canada's Celine Dion.

However, the 6,000-odd athletes, 3,000 performers, 300,000 spectators and dozens of world leaders had to endure heavy rain for much of the event.

Here's how the world's media judged Paris's ambitious ceremony:

FRANCE

Newspaper Le Monde wrote in a rave review that director Thomas Jolly "succeeded in his challenge of presenting an immersive show in a capital transformed into a gigantic stage".

Right-leaning Le Figaro said the show was "great but some of it was just too much". It said viewers "could have been spared" images including an apparent recreation of the painting of The Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles in front of a fashion show.

UNITED STATES

"Opening Ceremony Misses the Boat" headlined the New York Times's television review.

It wrote that the river parade "turned the ceremony into something bigger, more various and more intermittently entertaining. But it also turned it into something more ordinary — just another bloated made-for-TV spectacle".

The Washington Post was more glowing, noting that the organizer's "bold thinking" brought a shine back to an event that has seen its popularity wane in recent years.

CHINA

China's Xinhua state news agency said the ceremony succeeded in showcasing France.

"There were Can-Can girls, a homage to the reconstruction of Notre Dame and of course the French Revolution, with fireworks, heavy metal and singers who appeared to have lost a battle with the guillotine.

"If there was a downside to the ceremony, it is that any event performed over such a long distance has to struggle with continuity, and the big difference between this ceremony and others is that the parade of athletes was mixed in with the performances."

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean media noted the "impressive" imagination of using the whole city as the backdrop but the event was overshadowed by the country's team being misintroduced as North Korea.

South Korea's CBS radio said while the incident was no doubt an honest mistake, it was disappointing the Paris organizers failed at what should have been a very basic part of the event.

GERMANY

"As beautiful as it was mad," wrote Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine. "France revolutionized the opening ceremony ... by the end even the rain had been defeated."

Tabloid Bild was bowled over by Celine Dion's return to the stage after four years, defying illness to "sing just as in the best of times. She deserves a gold medal for this performance."

BRITAIN

British tabloid The Sun joked "Wet The Games Begin!" on its front page alongside an image of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by laser beams, and described the ceremony as spectacular.

The Daily Mail's headline read "La Farce!", mainly in reference to the train disruption earlier in the day, but the paper also judged Paris's gamble on the weather had "backfired spectacularly".

A writer for the Guardian newspaper described the parade of boats on the Seine as "like watching an endless series of weirdly nationalistic office parties" but concluded Celine Dion had rescued the event with a "jaw dropping" performance.

ITALY

La Gazzetta dello Sport said the ceremony was "something unprecedented, even extraordinary. A great show or a long, tedious work, depending on your point of view and sensibility."

The mainstream Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera likened the show to a contemporary art performance, noting that "some (spectators) were bored, others were amused, many found the spectacle disappointing".

The left-leaning Italian daily La Repubblica said the ceremony overshadowed the athletes.

"A lot of France, a lot of Paris, very little Olympics.... a mirror that the immortal Paris turned on herself and discovered that she was so much, too much and soaking wet".