Years ago Paco de Lucía used to belong to us flamenco fans, but his capacity and genius were too outsized and over the years we’ve had to learn to share the maestro with the rest of the world.
At 58, in full artistic maturity, Francisco Sánchez Gómez,
with his freshly-minted Príncipe de Asturias prize, continues to
be involved in new projects, such as the production of the just-released
CD of La Tana or his splendid intervention on the Himno de Andalucía
record, and collecting honors, like four “Premios de la Música”
in the most recent edition of these awards celebrated last Thursday, April
21st, in Madrid.
For his record “Cositas Buenas” which came out last year,
the man from Algeciras was able to snatch the prizes for Best Album, Best
Son, Best Flamenco Album and Best Sound (Javier Limón) from favored
pop singer Bebe who aspired to a clean sweep of nine prizes but had to
settle for four, the same number as Paco de Lucía.
Our Paquito, as flamenco-lovers fondly refer to him, was unable to be
present for the awards ceremony, but we’ve had word from his personal
manager that Paco is delighted, not only because this has clearly been
“his year”, but because these new prizes represent the recognition
of the musicians themselves.
