On Thursday evening July 15th 2004, when Francisco Sánchez Gómez «Paco de Lucía» takes his set at the Parque de Valmy in Argeles-sur-Mer to offer the only concert in France of his present and last tour, it will be as the new holder of the Príncipe de Asturias prize for the Arts, a distinction that seventy European television stations consider of extreme interest, and one which has now gone to a flamenco artist for the first time in history.
The road has been long, intense and hard ever since the Chiquitos de
Algeciras, Paco and his brother Pepe, surprised flamenco fans in 1959
and Paco de Lucía began to apply his musical genius to an art which
until that time had been sidelined and even frowned-upon by Spaniards
themselves, at the same time that flamenco was seen by foreigners as the
supreme Spanish ID card.
Paco de Lucía spent years accompanying traditional singers, perfecting
his art and acquiring experience. At 15 he traveled to the United States
with the company of José Greco and took advantage of the occasion
to meet his idol Sabicas, in addition to Mario Escudero and others of
the elite flamenco crowd who immediately proclaimed the boy’s genius.
Not even those high-flying artists could possibly have imagined the revolution
that was about to take place. One day while Paco was rehearsing with singer
Bambino, a fair young gypsy passed by the studio and it was the beginning
of the most important flamenco collaboration of the last fifty years.
Camarón de la Isla did for cante, what Paco de Lucía did
for flamenco guitar, and they shared a symbiotic artistic relationship,
perfect communication and a profound friendship that made everything else
possible. Says Paco of his much-missed friend: “He always used to
call me, for each recording, although I couldn’t always do it. I
think he felt secure with me”.
But Paco de Lucía still had many roads to travel and in the mid-seventies,
after rubbing shoulders with the international music community and after
the astonishing popularity of his rumba “Entre dos Aguas”,
he set out on his own for once and for all, experimenting with jazz and
bossa nova, giving a flamenco treatment to compositions of Albéniz
and Falla. In 1981 he established his sextet formula and his international
fame was consolidated.
A few years ago the artist started to weary of the constant traveling,
the pressure, the scarce time he had to spend with his family or to compose.
He escaped to an idyllic spot in the Mexican Yucatán where for
four years he prepared his most recent recording and enjoyed water sports
and a tropical climate between tours.
Now Paco has returned to establish his residence in Spain once again,
and this important new prize intended “to award scientific, technical,
cultural, social and human endeavors carried out internationally by individuals
or teams, primarily in nations belonging to the Hispanic-American community”,
and for which Andrew Lloyd Webber, Ingmar Bergman, Bruce Springsteen and
Pedro Almodóvar were also nominated, will be added to the National
Guitar Prize for Flamenco Art, the Gold Medal for Performing Arts and
the Honorary Distinction of Premio de la Música among so many others
he has received throughout his long and admirable career.
