A Z of world music

18th October 2002, 1:00am

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A Z of world music

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/z-world-music-6
What goes into the making of a flamenco virtuoso? Paco Pena, who experiments ceaselessly with non-flamenco musicians, and who has given the odd lesson to Tony Blair, could be a perfect case in point.

“I was the second youngest of nine children. My family rented two rooms of an old house in Cordoba - sharing a toilet and tub with nine other families, several of them gypsies, which meant we were like one very big family, and every birth, marriage, or death involved everyone. We were surrounded by music - sung and played, not out of a radio.

“My elder brother had a guitar, and when I was six I picked it up and began to try to play it. Nobody was taught to play, people taught themselves. I loved inventing tunes on it - it just seemed a nice thing to do. And as I was naturally shy, I was glad to find I could do something which people found attractive, it was a great help socially. I just used to sit in the street, late into the hot nights, playing by the hour.

“At school there was a band, who wanted an accompanist: I became that, on a terrible old guitar I found there, and I also found a teacher who showed me the chords. That was the point when I really got going. I found my way to London, played in a restaurant, got noticed, was invited to play at the Wigmore Hall, and after that was asked to share the stage with the great Jimi Hendrix at the Royal Festival Hall. I was launched.

“My mission was to help raise flamenco guitar to solo status - in the Sixties it was only considered an accompaniment. It was rough, as were the instruments themselves - the strings rattled, the sound died too soon. There was so much more that could be done with it, as is still being discovered now.”

Paco Pena’s art can be found on Azahara (Nimbus), and that of his great friend Paco de Lucia on Sirocco (Philips).

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