José María Bandera: «Paco de Lucía is a great bus that we all end up getting on»

In a family of artists, Maria, the sister of Paco de Lucía, he never got to dedicate himself to music, but everyone agrees that he had a great talent for this discipline. He must have passed something on to his son, Jose Maria Bandera Sanchez (Algeciras, Cádiz, 1960), who was able to learn from his grandfather, Antonio Sánchez, and enjoy his uncles in the years when they went from being talented children to world idols. He was also able to accompany the genius from Algeciras in various projects and long tours, and currently remembers him on stages around the world with the show Parking, together with Diego AmadorIn this interview he recalls many of those experiences, although in delicate matters he feels obliged to speak out…

 

– You started studying with your grandfather. Was he that harsh and severe teacher that has been talked about so much, the one who had the little boy Paco tied to the chair?

– They even said that he was an ogre. My grandfather was not like that. He was a friend to his friends, he liked to laugh, but he was strict about certain things, not severe. I think there is a difference. He was very demanding. I remember Paco when he was 15 or 16 years old, I have seen many fights between my grandfather and all his children. But because of the guitar issue, Paco… Sometimes I think that what they say must be true, but I never saw him. I didn’t demand that he stay there for hours or anything.

– Do you remember when you left Algeciras?

– Yes, I remember very well when they went to Madrid. I didn’t visit the house in San Francisco, but the one in Bajadilla. I remember how you entered Barcelona Street. I often went there with my mother, and I stayed there playing with Paco, with Pepe. I was two and a half years old, but I remember going to the station, my mother carried me in her arms to say goodbye to them. My grandfather, my grandmother Lucía, Paco and Pepe left, because Antonio was volunteering in Algeciras doing his military service, and Ramón was in the navy, I don’t know if in San Fernando. Paco was 14 or 15 years old, and Pepe 16 or 17.

– And do you remember them playing and singing?

– Well, all day long. What happened later was that, since Paco didn’t like Madrid, the only one who stayed married in Algeciras was my mother, so he spent more time at my house than in Madrid. He went to Madrid when he had no other choice, and as soon as he could, he was back at my house. My family was my father, my mother and Paco, because my sister came quite a bit later. He was my uncle and my older brother. And always playing, of course. There was always someone playing, my grandfather, Ramón, Paco, or Pepe singing, or my mother, who also sang very well.

– What music was played at home?

– Above all, my mother was in love with Marifé de Triana. She was always singing for Marifé. And then Camarón, to Fosforito, because Paco plays him on all the records… And above all there is a small record that was one of those 45 rpm ones, by Terremoto playing Morao, and it was played a lot. Cante por seguiriya, por soleá, fandangos… Much later, Paco told me about that album: “That album was perfection, the way it was sung and accompanied.”

– Do you remember Paco, who used to come to your house as a child tormented by the demands of the guitar?

– No way, not at all. Paco would arrive in the mornings and we would go to Playa de los Ladrillos in our bathing suits, a T-shirt and flip-flops. There he would give me the T-shirt and flip-flops and I would walk to Rinconcillo, which is about three kilometres away, and I would wait for him on the steps of the Hostal Bahía. Paco swam four or five kilometres a day, he was a fit man. He had some great backs! We would stay there until the afternoon. Afterwards, when we came back, he would take the guitar for a while and then go out at night. So, tormented, I don’t know who…

– Come on, that monk that has been painted is a clear exaggeration.

– I have known all of Paco’s eras, and… It’s true that if he had a concert coming up, he had to spend two or three days in his room, I would spend them with them in a corner, listening. But I have never known that slave. Paco had a facility for playing beyond the limits of what we can conceive in our heads. He didn’t need to study much. He may have studied a lot before I knew him or was aware of it, it may be, surely. But from then on, I’m talking to you when I was 16 or 17, Paco didn’t spend too much time studying. I might have been playing football, and if I knew that Paco was studying, I would go and hide in my room, there, I would stay very quiet in a corner. And yes, he would spend three or four hours. But no more.

 

«His personality, his mind, were a torrent of creativity. He had no boundaries, whatever occurred to him came out. You create a falseta and you have to think about the melody, how you are going to play it, how you are going to digitize it, how it sounds best… And with Paco that time didn't exist. He did it like this, boom! And he was already playing the idea he had, everything well harmonized and digitized. It was impressive how fast everything went»

 

– When did the family realise that Paco was the giant who was on his way to conquering the world? Did he come much later?

– I have been aware since I was very young that this was not normal. I'm talking about three years ago. It was something very important, very serious, I didn't know if it had a worldwide impact, but it was a privilege that I had at home. I was excited to hear it, and I knew it was extraordinary. And I listened to the Beatles, I listened to the rock that was in fashion, but that was cheap music. Paco made serious music, and what he made later. Camarón. Paco has given us all a status flamencos of today, but before a flamenco was very badly regarded, and one more guitarist. The figure was the singer, there were no concert artists. The first concert artist who emerged in Spain was Serranito. There was Sabicas in the United States, and little else. It was a time when the flamenco was denigrated. Everything that came from outside was good, what came from here was not worth a penny.

– When they hear for the first time CamarónDo you feel the same, that there is something great there?

- A Camarón Paco doesn't detect it from the beginning. I listened to him sing and thought that the one I liked was CamarónI also spent many hours listening to both of them, and I thought that, that I didn't like the others, that it was José who really got to me. I didn't know the impact it would have, but with Paco I did, from the first moment.

– How would you explain to a layman why Paco was so superior to the others?

– To start with, because of his fluidity in playing. The other guitarists were this, that. Paco played, improvised, made things up as he went along, he was a beast. Talent, talent, and more than talent… he was everything. His hands were impressive, the strength he gave to his performance, the rhythm he had. He did everything with an inner joy that is difficult to explain. And he did it above any other instrumentalist, I am not just talking about guitarists. Sometimes I think that I had idealized Paco, because I was a kid, but now I hear him, I see the old videos that are being rescued on the Internet, in black and white, and I see that the idea I had was not an idealization at all. Paco was the beast. He released a small record, which was around my house and I lost it, and from then on everyone has their eyes on him. Who is this? And at 17 or 18 years old he starts to be highly regarded.

– And what was Ramón like?

– Ramón was a follower of Ricardo. He joined Juanito Valderrama’s company because my grandfather was a friend of a fish exporter from Algeciras who was a close friend of his, Pepe Marín, who was Valderrama’s godfather. Everyone went to the parties that were organised at his house, even Carmen Linares told me that when she was a child she had gone to one with her mother, because she was related to Marín. The fact is that my grandfather tells Pepe that he has a son who plays very well. Paco was very young, but he manages to get Ramón into Valderrama’s company, where Ricardo plays. Ramón is a figure of his time, he plays everything by Ricardo very well, very cleanly. He was a Ricardo guitarist. And so he says to him, “come and see my brother.” And Ricardo is amazed, he becomes a paquero. Ramón takes care of him, he gives him Ricardo's falsetas, Paco changes them, he gets very angry that he changes them, but Paco gives him his own style... And with Ramón he connects with what the professional world is. He gave him his support. Paco is like a big bus that we all get on, Ramón, Camarón, and in the end we ended up mounting all the flamencos. His person, his head, were a torrent of creativity. He had no boundaries, whatever occurred to him came out. You create a falseta and you have to think about the melody, how you are going to play it, how you are going to digitize it, how it sounds best, how to put it in your hands and let time pass until it sounds good to you… And with Paco that time didn’t exist. He did it like this, boom! And he was already playing the idea he had, everything well harmonized and digitized. It was impressive how fast everything went.

– When was there first talk of you joining Paco’s project?

– Wow… I always play, and when I was six or seven I tried to start playing by myself. My grandfather sees me and says, come on, I’ll teach you. That was hard, I remember crying. I was nine or ten years old and everything was very demanding, put your hand here, your wrist on the outside, your hand at this angle, keep your back straight, bring your foot, be careful, don’t do this… And when I was concentrating on something with my left hand, he would say to me “your foot!” and there were times when I started to cry. “Now you’re going to cry!” After that, honestly, I don’t know how I continued playing the guitar. But that gave me a discipline that I never lost. When you get that discipline from that age, things never go away. My grandfather then bought a house in Algeciras, in Carteya, where I give classes, and Paco no longer comes to our house when he comes back from Madrid, he goes to his father’s. I’m giving classes and Paco is over there. And in the evenings, as I said, I stayed with him listening to it, sitting on the floor. And one day he said to me, “Look, take the chords I put down.” I took the chords, “play them like this, like a rumba,” and I did it. I remember that it was summer. One day I was playing football and I saw a car that didn’t sound familiar to me, one of those Citroen sharks, and I thought that this car must be Paco’s. I went up, and he opened the door for me. I was sweating, in shorts. “Come in, come in, take the guitar.” It was already December 21st, Paco’s birthday. “Do you remember the chords I gave you? Play them, play them.” I did, and he was standing, with his guitar resting on the table. It was Between two waters. Suddenly he said to me, could you join me in Monti’s Czarda? I was studying the picados of the Czarda at the time, so I said “sure”. He played them and he did it amazingly fast, and when we finished, he said to me, “come on, let’s go, we won’t make it, we have to play”. And I said, “what do you mean we have to play?” I was 13 years old. “We have to play in Ronda, go home, tell your mother you’re coming and change your clothes”. I went, we both played at the Teatro de la Merced, and that was the first time I seriously got up on stage. Imagine how scared I was. But anyway, from then on, the following summer or the one after that came, and he said to me “we’re going on a tour. We’re going to go just the two of us, I’ve got two months and a bit”. And I was wondering how I could explain that at home, having to leave school… In the end I don’t know what happened, that tour was cancelled, and there must have been some problem with that tour, because Paco was banned from the United States for ten years. I don’t know if it was the musicians’ union, I didn’t even want to ask… He’s back with Larry Coryell’s trio, John McLaughin’s…

 

«I was excited when I heard it, I knew it was extraordinary. I listened to the Beatles, I listened to the rock that was in fashion, but that was cheap music. Serious music was what Paco made, and what he made later. Camarón»

 

 

– When are you playing with him again?

– I am still studying, I am going to Seville to study Industrial Engineering. I was wrong, because I wanted to do Sound, but I realized too late that I had chosen the wrong career. There, in my house, one day I was listening to music upstairs, and I felt that there were people playing well, and one of them was singing some lyrics that made me laugh a lot. And one day, as I was also playing, they knocked on my door and two people appeared that I didn’t know at all. “You play the guitar, don’t you?” They were Raimundo and Rafael, and the one who sang was Kiko Veneno. In the afternoons they would come and we would start studying. They sent me to Seville so that I would forget about the guitar, and look where I got myself into. I spent more time playing than studying. Then I went to Germany with Pedro. PaloThere were places to play. Paco went there with the sextet in Germany and told me to go with them for a few days, but without playing. I came back and Paco said to me, “Why don’t you go to Madrid and get into a tablao?” And I said, “Oh, a tablao? Well, come on.” I was fed up with playing to dance in Algeciras. Paco spoke to Rafael, from Los Canasteros, who was down and out because he wasn’t paying. The thing is that I met a lot of artists there, there was Antonio Carmona, Ray Heredia, La Macanita, a lot of good artists. One day a choreographer from the National Ballet, Felipe Sánchez, came and greeted me. “We’re putting something together, in case you’re interested in coming in, the day after tomorrow I’ll come with the director.” And so it was, he came with María de Ávila. And after a month and a half or so, Felipe called me because Luis Habichuela had become ill, and they had to open at the Monumental and there was only one guitarist, Rafael Morales. I went in, I had to prepare for 45 minutes, I spent three days without sleep. The pressure was horrible, I can't stand those things anymore, but then I was the age I was. I did a month, then they offered me three months, then a year... And I stayed there, they gave me a lot of freedom to come and go, to do things outside. I started doing things with the old sextet. One time Paco called me because Jorge couldn't come, and I had to accompany Jorge's melodies, when Carlos couldn't come I had to learn Carlos's things... I always had to learn a lot of things, but anyway, I played with Paco and with the sextet, well, with half a sextet!

– You were patching it up, weren't you?

– Yes, I remember that one of the things I did was at the Flamenco Summit, in the old Teatro Alcalá, when Juan Ramírez was dancing. Indeed, I was putting on drumheads. And Paco also did many things with Ramón, and he called me to do other voices, we went as a trio. I really started with those trios. We did many guitar festivals: the one in Corsica, those in Canada, where I went many times… And the first Biennial, in the Alcázares of Seville.

– When Cañizares joined, you already had a long history with your uncle.

– Sure, and that had been brewing for a while too. Paco told me, “I want to do the three flamenco guitars thing, really. I’m going to take a break from the sextet and get on with this. Who do we call?” And I said, “I don’t know, Paco, Vicente, Cañizares? Call Vicente.” And he said, “No, let’s call Cañizares” [laughs]. And that’s where we started.

– Are you laughing because you had your ups and downs with Vicente?

– I was friends with both of them, but Vicente was a bit more… at my level. Cañizares was driving me crazy at that time. And Paco noticed, of course. Paco called me a week in advance to set up a concert in Copenhagen and we all got caught up in it. Paco was scared. In fact, the rehearsals started and it was going at a hellish pace. Cañizares was listening to everything and I didn’t understand anything. They were new falsetas, you had to look at where the tempos were, and when I asked they were already on to the next falseta. I said: “My God, either I get my act together or I have to leave here out of honesty. I can’t be here because I’m a nephew, there’s a high level here and I have to be up to it.” It was a challenge for me, I thought it would take a long time, but in two and a half months I was already presentable.

– How was the tour received? There was a time when classical musicians questioned Paco…

– Paco said: “Everyone has played this very well, what am I going to contribute here?” Concert It was made by a pianist, it's not very guitar-oriented, and it has very complicated guitar phrases. Each guitarist, when certain passages come up, makes his own summaries or his own way of playing them. What Paco says is "I'm going to play all the notes. And I'm going to do it at the rhythm." Because there are some rubatos, the phrases are complicated and in order not to fail, they are done as if they were delayed. And he says "no, I'm going to do it like this." And that's what we did. He put us to work, "take all the recordings of the Concert of Aranjuez, all of them! You and Cañizares share them out, and we go to this phrase, to this one, to this one…” And indeed, we found the concerts one by one, we went to the phrases and indeed we saw that these summaries were made or there were notes that were not given because it was impossible. A piano is two hands, of course, the guitar has the four notes of the four fingers, it is quite complicated. There we started to listen, we made the notes. It seems that Paco said “let's go”, but a very serious study was made. And Paco gave it that force that only he gave to the music. I listen The Aranjuez concert, and the one I like is Paco's. There are even people in conservatories who study it like Paco does. I see interviews from the Segovia era, from Yepes, and they go at each other's throats. To top it all off, between a flamenco to get involved in such matters, he should have been shot.

– There is contempt for the flamencothat the classics have always had, right?

– Don Andrés Segovia was largely to blame for this. He says that he rescued the guitars from the taverns to take them to the theatres. And he was always talking about Paco, “playing quartets, tiqui-tiqui, tucu-tucu.” If he spoke so badly of Paco, he must have been doing something right.

 

«There was a lot of dynamics in the sextet, with the percussion, the bass, the flute, the dancing… It was one of the things that Paco told me, that with the trio I could nuance things better. On a guitar level it was very important, it was very powerful. There are still people who tell me, how nice was the trio, why don't you do something like that again? Maybe we'll do something now. I watch old videos and I even scare myself»

 

– In those days, although Paco is already a world figure, you have experienced difficult tours, right?

– They all were, even though they were stars. I remember that the first tour with Cañizares was 84 concerts in 90 days. With an average of 600 kilometres a day, there were days of 1.300 kilometres. Paco didn’t want any gaps between days. “If we do Munich and Frankfurt and we have two days in between, find me two other cities.” And so we filled and filled, and that became quite a sacrifice of travel and sleep. A real pain. Not later, but at that time it was horrible.

– In the midst of all that, was there time for parties?

– It was a party all day long, we had three months of partying [laughs]. There was something going on every day, because after the concerts we went out to dinner, according to contract, apart from the catering. And the dinner at the end, you came back from the concert, people came, and things got messy. That took its toll on us in terms of sleep, we were always quite tired. It was extreme in every sense.

– You then formally joined the sextet, from 99 to 2002. What were the relationships like?

– It was a family. In fact, we still treat each other as such today. We were great musicians and very good people.

– Was it very different from playing with just Cañi and Paco?

– Yes, there was a lot of dynamics in the sextet, with the percussion, the bass, the flute, the dancing… It was one of the things that Paco told me, that with the trio I could nuance things better, on a guitar level it was very important, it was very powerful. There are still people who tell me, “how nice the trio was, why don’t you do something like that again?” Maybe we will do something now. I watch old videos and it scares me too. With the sextet we had to play louder, there was more showmanship too, it was very different.   

– What memories do you have of recording? Sirocco?

– Well, just like Ronda, Paco calls you overnight and says, “Come on, you're going to record, you're going to record.” “I'm going to record what, Paco?” And nothing, you just record right there. Sugar cane.

– Did he carry it all in his head and did he put you within those limits?

– He had it all in his head, and he put it into the guitar, into his fingers, whenever it was needed. Guitar-wise, he was totally fluid, with the sound, with the fingering… It was incredible. At the time of Sirocco, around 85 or 86, he would come up with something and record it. With the ProTools thing and the sequencing he became more meticulous, and at some point I told him: “Paco, we have to play like before.” “Yeah, but I got late, it’s not on the clapperboard…” “Well, say you did it on purpose.” ProTools has done a lot of damage [laughs]. I have seen all of Paco’s albums cooked up live, since I was three years old. And Paco’s albums have been very good. CamarónBut it was not given any importance at that time. People were focused, they were doing their best, but they did not think it could have as much significance as it has had. They worked well, and that was it, without thinking about what would happen later.

– What was Paco like as a traveling companion?

– Very funny. Laughing, really, laughing all day long. I couldn’t relax, I always had to create tension. “Paco, stop it already,” we would say laughing. He would make the driver fight with the sound technician, me with Cañizares… Always the same. When we went to New York in February, Chonchi would say to me “can you imagine what Paco would be doing here on the plane, making everyone fight?” [laughs] And he was so observant, he noticed everything. Suddenly he would point while we were having dinner and say, have you noticed that guy at the back of the kitchen? He was very funny, very Algeciras funny.

 

«What Paco had was an ability to play outside the limits of what we can conceive in our heads. He didn't need to study much. That he had studied a lot before I met him or was aware of it, may be, surely. But from then on, I'm talking to you when I was 16 or 17, Paco didn't put in a lot of effort to study»

 

 

– Where did they love him most?

– Everywhere. In Japan, just imagine. In New York, the audience was great, in Argentina the same, in Germany… I remember that in 2014 or 2015 we did a tour with the two sextets, all together. It was done by Michael Stein, Paco’s manager. We had to learn a lot of Paco’s guitars, we did the same thing. I just want to walk And that sounded like you were going to see Paco sitting there. And when we finished and were going to move on to the bulería, we couldn't do it because they spent ten minutes applauding. Ten minutes. That was quite exciting.

– What was Paco looking for in a guitarist to accompany him?

– Above all, rhythm. That was the first thing. And then if the harmony was good, if I had good ideas to accompany it, if I had a nice voice in a phrase or if I found chords that went well… But mainly the rhythm.

–Have you ever heard of guitarists who are resentful of Paco because he was a source of frustration for them?

– Do I have to answer the question? [laughs] Nobody is going to say that, even if they feel it. Feelings of that? Yes, I have had them.

– Were you close to Paco when he died? Camarón?

– I experienced it very closely. As flamenco, it was the most unpleasant moment of his life. Paco was, as I said before, a bus that many of us got on. When he comes Camarón In Madrid, there were gypsies who did not like it Camarón, and Paco, who was already a star at 18 or 19, defended him to the death. “This is the one that goes with me.” Of course, many things happen afterwards, I have seen them study, in Algeciras, and on the street Ilustración in Madrid, and they picked up Arabic radio stations. They had a couple of singers located that they liked a lot. They recorded cassettes, and there were turns that Paco caught and asked for. Camarón They did everything together, it was a tight block, also in the studio. Paco gave a lot of ideas on how to sing, on how to do things. Many of the songs are Paco's. And just before all that happened, Paco told me: "You have to see the work I've done here with you." Camarón, and this has not been recognized nor will it ever be recognized." And soon after, the controversy broke out. Imagine what I was thinking, what happened next, that they called him a thief... What about Paco and Camarón It should be something sacred, to be kept on the altars. Until things became a little clearer, everything was so ugly, he had such a bad time… One day we were alone in the house, Camarón He was already very ill, and he said to me: “I would like to go see Camarón, why can't I go?” Before José died things were already bad, and I told him, “wait, I'm going to go to La Línea for a moment.” I went to Teatro Street, passed by the door and there was an atmosphere there, that I thought, “look, Paco, you better call, or do what you see fit.” And when he died he was pretty upset. I remember that I called him and he said, “it's over, it's over.” I didn't understand very well, he just said that, “it's over, it's over.” Maybe all the ideas I had with him, he stopped tours in which he was going to put a lot of money in his pocket, to record with CamarónIt was a combination of many things. It took him a while to recover from that.

– Did you feel betrayed by colleagues who sided with La Chispa?

– Yes. Can I speak? [laughter]

– Sure. Which guitarists did he like?

– Man, he was an admirer of Sabicas, of Ricardo. He saw how the level of guitar was rising, Cañizares, Vicente, of whom he said that he has very good ideas… One time he called me very late when Vicente released the album Rome, to tell me to listen to him. He followed a lot of guitarists.

– Another thing that caught a lot of attention among the flamencoIt was the kind of compliments she showered on a pop singer like Alejandro Sanz, to the point of causing jealousy. What was their relationship like?

– Well, I wanted to be in touch with young people, I wanted to be up to date with what was coming out. And Alejandro is very friendly, very much from Algeciras like his father. Paco always tried to look after his relationships.

 

«The other guitarists were this, that. Paco played, improvised, made things up on the fly, he was a beast. Talent, talent, and more than talent… he was everything. His hands were impressive, the strength he gave to the interpretation, the rhythm he had. He did everything with an inner joy that is difficult to explain»

 

– What role does Pepe play in Paco’s career?

– Enrique Modrego called Pepe and Paco The gladiators, They were always fighting each other in the company of El Greco. And the relationship was a bit like that until the end, they were always killing each other, but they are brothers, you know. On El Greco's albums Camarón, that Pepe was there was important, along with my grandfather Antonio. For me the true anthology of cante They are the records from 69 to 75 or 77, that's a lot. There are some that come out every year, with cantes new, new lyrics, new falsetas. It was a compact team, now it's what I listen to the most. It seems to me the best thing that has been recorded in the history of flamenco. And when my grandfather reached a point where he didn't write, Pepe would make songs and Paco would arrange them, giving them different twists... That's how all those later albums were made, Like water, I will live, Calle Real, also a marvel.

– When Pepe left the group and Duquende came in, was it the result of a long period of wear and tear?

– They had a fight, I don't know why.

– And at what point did the first sextet break up? Was there tiredness or disagreement?

– No tiredness. No differences between the two, either. Can I share a word? [laughs]

– You're also going to give me a piece of your mind with this question. Juan Ramírez told me that Paco paid very little. Was that true?

– Juan Ramírez left the sextet because he didn't want to get on a plane. He was afraid, he took buses and maybe he had to go from Copenhagen to Oslo, and he didn't make it to the concerts.

– Does the appearance of Javier Limón represent a significant change?

– For better or for worse?

– You tell me.

– [Laughs] It's something… totally irrelevant. He appears as a co-producer, how is Javier Limón going to produce an album for Paco? There are people who make a living the way they can, but what significance will it have?

– Do you think that it influenced at least the musicians who accompanied you from then on?

Yes, because for the first sextet they hired a bassist who I don’t remember who he was, El Negri was the guitarist… This was on Javier Limón’s advice, and since Paco has always been a bit like that, “come on, okay.” Until he gets on stage and it might not work out, of course. And little by little he shapes it. But he let himself get carried away quite a bit. Too much. To the point of indolence. And he regretted not having reacted in time. It happened to him in quite a few things. He must have had a bad time, because he could take the musicians he wanted. I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if this guy’s hand was behind it.

 

«Paco has given us all a status flamencos of today. Before a flamenco was very badly regarded, and one more guitarist. The figure was the singer, there were no concert artists. The first concert artist who emerged in Spain was Serranito. There was Sabicas in the United States, and little else. It was a time when the flamenco "I was denigrated. Everything that came from outside was good, what came from here was not worth a penny"

 

 

– Then came Alain, Piranha, Serrano…

I was really hard on Antonio Serrano, I almost put him in the sextet myself. Jorge couldn't come and I told him, "call Antonio." And Paco was reluctant, "the harmonica is a very American instrument, very funny." But of course, I played him records and told him, "look how he plays." "The truth is that he plays very well." I insisted a lot, and I think that's one of the few things he listened to me about. And thank goodness Antonio was there.

Alain was very different from Carles, wasn't he?

Absolutely. There is no comparison. There is one important thing in artists, in all of them, which is humility. If you are not humble and honest, especially humble, you are not an artist. And when it comes to creating, you have to create from humility. And some lack that little thing.

But Paco made them all stand up straight, didn't he?

Someone told me that one day with Alain she had a hard time. She would put everyone down on stage. And if she didn't put you down on stage, there was the word. And if you didn't notice, she would make you realize it.

Have you ever attended a corrective class like that?

Phew! I attended one with Ramón. In the trio, too. I won't tell you any more.

We're going to have to go one day without a tape recorder. Did you have any bad nights with Paco?

Man, things have happened, of course I've seen him suffer, but because he was out of control. Because he spent two days without sleeping. And I've seen him between boxes, him on stage and me still without clothes, and thinking "I have to go in and take him away."

Very fail-worthy?

No, he couldn't play, he played the minera, he scraped it, I was thinking "damn, he plays it, he plays it", the bulería, "it comes out, it comes out too"... Even though he was in very bad physical condition, he played. It was another of the extraordinary things about Paco, the abilities he had. But those concerts seemed long to him.

Did you continue to see each other often in recent years?

He mixed and mastered the last two albums here in Boadilla, and I went with him. It was fifteen days and fifteen days. We hadn't spoken for a long time and we caught up. He told me a lot of things, "you have to play very quietly"...

 

«They knocked on my door and two guys I didn't know anything about appeared. You play the guitar, right? They were Raimundo and Rafael, and the one who sang was Kiko Veneno. In the afternoons they came and we started studying. They sent me to Seville so I wouldn't forget about the guitar, and look where I ended up. I spent more time playing than studying.»

 

Have things cooled down between you?

Yes, things have cooled down. Can I have a word?

But the reunion was natural, right?

Yes, totally, the relationship was completely recovered. He mixed the live and the good thingsBut we already talked on the phone, we met, we went out to eat...

Do you remember how you received the news of his death?

Yes. Pepi, Malú’s mother, called me. “Paco has died.” And I had spoken to Paco four or five days before. I didn’t know which Paco she was talking about. “Paco… but, Paco?” And she told me it had been a heart attack. It was about half past one in the morning, I was asleep, I went to the kitchen, made myself breakfast and around seven in the morning they gave me the news. But at first I didn’t believe it.

How much do you remember him in your daily life?

Every day, every time I pick up the guitar, I think of him a lot, a lot. Today I remembered that he came to my house a couple of times and he always sat on some steps to go out into the garden. Today I sat there and thought “look, like Paco”.

What was Paco interested in, besides music?

Paco read a lot. I remember some very small pocket books that were available when I was about five or six years old. One of them had a horrible ghost in a castle on the cover, and it was by Paco. I would hide under the table to read it without my mother seeing me. It was The ghost of Canterville, by Oscar Wilde. I laughed a lot at that ghost who got scared when visitors arrived. Even then, Paco always had interesting books on hand.

Who were Paco's real friends?

He had many friends, but he was only a friend of two or three. Now everyone is his friend, from childhood, too. His great friend was Carlos Rebato, who died a couple of years after him, Manolo Ramírez, Manolo Nieto… La Banda del Tío Pringue.

Were you with him at his house in Cancun?

Many times. I was the one who liked underwater fishing. In Mexico, they didn't do it much, because there were a lot of sharks. But my obsession has always been underwater fishing. When he bought the house in Playa del Carmen, he invited me and I went for three years. I stayed there for a month and a half or two months. And since I had continued fishing in the Strait, I was used to it. They threw me in like a flounder, like bait. Once I got into it, they started to get into it.

Was it a different Paco?

He couldn't stop laughing. And on tour, the three of us alone, we couldn't have laughed more. The jokes are all about two rhombuses. Maybe we were with some American musicians and I found one that looked like one from Bajadilla that we knew. I'll tell you another one because it's already outdated. At a dinner in Brussels they invited us and Toots Thielemans came, the master of the masters of the harmonica. And Paco was always there to see how he could put you in a difficult position. At dessert he takes out the harmonica, you couldn't play it better. And Paco comes up to me and whispers in my ear, "Don't you look like a dog eating a bone?" [laughter] Those were the crazy things that occurred to him. ♦

 

 

→  See here the installments of the series THE CHOSEN ONES, by Alejandro Luque, about Paco de Lucía's collaborators.