Paco de Lucía, the excitement of playing the guitar
Nobody has taken the classic guitar and its music as high as Paco de Lucía. If anything can be learned from this music it’s that it broke all the previously established ideas. Genius can arise from one of the humblest neighbourhoods – Algeciras – because when someone loves music and works for it, there are no limits.
Starting to play the Spanish guitar when he was 12 years old was no coincidence. In a low-class family where music was another way to survive, working with the guitar was an investment which ended up bearing fruit and which gave Paco de Lucía the opportunity to meet great guitar masters, including Camarón de la Isla and a Juan Lebrijano, who helped him to master the art of guitar playing.
There are no doubts: flamenco needs heart. Playing the guitar as a profession and passion gave Paco de Lucía unmitigated international recognition, emotion turned into rumba, bulerías, happiness and countless records and techniques in his more than thirty musical works, innumerable collaborations with the most prestigious musicians from all over the world and his intimate, unrepeatable concerts.
But Paco de Lucía is not only remembered for being one of the greatest masters of classical and flamenco guitar. His compositions and attraction for other rhythms and genres were taken to classical Spanish music from Manuel de Falla to the most innovative compositions, with the famous trio Paco de Lucía, John MacLauglin, and Al Di Meola.
Becoming a prophet in your own land is not easy, but if your life is sacrifice and emotion for the art of guitar playing, everything will come, and Paco de Lucía is the memory of all of this.
