Obituary: Paco de Lucia: Guitarist who broke flamenco boundaries

02 March 2014 - 03:01 By ©The Daily Telegraph, London
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NEVER SATISFIED: Paco de Lucia made millions, but only heard his mistakes
NEVER SATISFIED: Paco de Lucia made millions, but only heard his mistakes

Paco de Lucia, who has died of a suspected heart attack aged 66, was one of the most admired practitioners of the flamenco guitar and credited with bringing the traditional Gypsy music of southern Spain to audiences around the world.

1947-2014

De Lucia looked every inch the traditional Spanish guitarist.

One reviewer wrote: "He's proud and majestic, like a regal Arabian steed prancing with grace and elegance, yet able to reveal great power."

He became known as the leading proponent of the "New Flamenco" style, which combines flamenco guitar virtuosity with other genres such as jazz, rock, Cuban swing, tango and salsa.

He constantly broke musical boundaries and his career was defined by crossover collaborations with the likes of guitarists such as Eric Clapton, John McLaughlin and Al Di Meola, as well as the jazz pianist Chick Corea.

When De Lucia broke from strict flamenco tradition in the 1960s, purists were appalled, but over time even hardened traditionalists embraced him as a master of the flamenco guitar.

The only person who remained dissatisfied was De Lucia, who said in 2012: "Sometimes I see the guitar and I see the devil, because when I hear myself I only see the blemish."

The youngest of five children of a flamenco guitarist of Gypsy origin, he was born Francisco Sanchez Gomez in the port city of Algeciras in the province of Andalucia on December 21 1947. His stage name honoured his Portuguese-born mother, Lucia.

The family was poor, and he remembered his mother in tears because there was not enough to eat. De Lucia began playing the guitar at the age of five and, after leaving school at the age of 11, his father encouraged him to practise for up to 12 hours a day.

He began earning money at the age of 12 and by 14 was touring the US with the dance company of José Greco. He became the first flamenco musician to play at Madrid's Teatro Real.

When he was in his late teens De Lucia met another gifted teenage flamenco artist, the singer Camaron de la Isla, then just 15. Until Camaron's death at the age of 42 after years of drug use, they worked in a partnership that has been compared to that of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, pushing the boundaries of their art. Such was their mutual respect that, in the middle of a concert, one would often stop and listen to the other's performance.

De Lucia made some 25 albums, earning millions of dollars, and continued to tour until November, with sellout concerts in South America.

But he remained eternally dissatisfied: "I never feel like I'm someone who can move people to tears," he claimed in 2012.

"When I was 20, I used to say that I wanted to be 50 already to be able to stop feeling this way, but I will die with the grief of not enjoying what I've accomplished."

De Lucia is survived by his second wife, Gabriela Carrasco, their son and daughter, and his son and two daughters from his first marriage.

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