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
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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."



Ticketmaster May Have Misled UK Oasis Fans, Watchdog Says

A view of a mural of Oasis band members Liam and Noel Gallagher by artist Pic.One.Art on the side of Sifters record shop in the Burnage area of Manchester, Britain, August 31, 2024. (Reuters)
A view of a mural of Oasis band members Liam and Noel Gallagher by artist Pic.One.Art on the side of Sifters record shop in the Burnage area of Manchester, Britain, August 31, 2024. (Reuters)
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Ticketmaster May Have Misled UK Oasis Fans, Watchdog Says

A view of a mural of Oasis band members Liam and Noel Gallagher by artist Pic.One.Art on the side of Sifters record shop in the Burnage area of Manchester, Britain, August 31, 2024. (Reuters)
A view of a mural of Oasis band members Liam and Noel Gallagher by artist Pic.One.Art on the side of Sifters record shop in the Burnage area of Manchester, Britain, August 31, 2024. (Reuters)

Ticketmaster may have misled music fans into paying more for tickets than they had planned last year to see British band Oasis, the UK's competition watchdog said on Tuesday, urging the company to change how it labels tickets and informs customers.

Thousands of fans waited for hours online to get their hands on highly coveted tickets for the band's 2025 reunion shows, only to find prices had jumped by the time they got to the front of the queue.

"We’re concerned that Oasis fans didn’t get the information they needed or may have been misled into buying tickets they thought were better than they were," said Hayley Fletcher, interim senior director of consumer protection at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

The watchdog said it was concerned that Ticketmaster may have breached consumer law. CMA does not currently have power to levy fines for breaching consumer laws, which are enforced through the court system.

A Ticketmaster statement said that it aimed to provide a "simple, transparent and consumer-friendly experience" and welcomed the CMA's input.

The CMA launched an investigation into Ticketmaster in September to examine if it had engaged in "unfair commercial practices," and if they were pressured to buy tickets within a short period of time.

The CMA originally said it was also looking at how dynamic pricing models - a form of surge pricing - may have been used, but Ticketmaster has said it did not use dynamic pricing models.

The outcry over the way the ticket sale process was managed became a hot political topic, spurring Prime Minister Keir Starmer to promise to get a grip on the wider issue of event tickets being sold at inflated prices.

The government has since announced proposals to cap resale prices and hold reselling websites more accountable.

The CMA issued an update on its findings on Tuesday outlining two main concerns.

One was that seats labelled as "platinum" were sold at a premium without consumers being made fully aware that they didn't come with any extra benefits.

Another was insufficient information provided to buyers at the start of the queue on different ticket categories and their prices if cheaper tickets were sold out before their turn to buy.

The CMA said Ticketmaster had made some changes since the investigation began, but that more work was still needed.

"We now expect Ticketmaster to work with us to address these concerns so, in future, fans can make well-informed decisions when buying tickets," the CMA's Fletcher said.