How did you meet Paco de Lucía?
In Mexico, on his tour.
What made you fall in love with him?
His personality, so original. Your criteria. He was smart, curious, funny. And pure.
It had a point of mystery.
His gaze was deep. She saw what you couldn’t see.
Were you very happy with him?
A lot, the last fifteen years of his life. Paco made the world interesting and life magical, he filled it with adventure.
Ten years since his death: February 25.
His absence devastated me, I was left empty.
What did he die of?
From a heart attack. Without warning. He had had a recent checkup and his health was perfect.
And he was young.
A baby. He was 67 years old when he died.
He is still alive for thousands of people.
I would prefer him to stay alive by my side.
Clear.
It is true that his legacy survives: now there are two books about him, and an album…
A disc!
They are newly found cassette recordings of Los Chiquitos de Algeciras: Paco de Lucía and his brother Pepe when they were children, they play and sing.
Good way to remember him on this tenth anniversary.
And this year in Algeciras the Paco de Lucía Interpretation Center will be inaugurated: may schools, Algeciras and visitors remember him. It’s obligatory!
More of a festival in New York, right?
How lucky is New York! From February 20 to 24, the Paco de Lucía Legacy Festival is held there.
What will it consist of?
Great artists will perform in tribute to Paco de Lucía, on various stages: Al Di Meola, Diego el Cigala, Rubén Blades, Pepe Habichuela, Tino di Geraldo, Sílvia Pérez Cruz, Farruquito, Josemi Carmona…
Who organizes?
The Paco de Lucía Foundation, whose objective is what Paco always had: to defend and dignify flamenco.
What did Paco say about flamenco?
Which was their culture.
And he and Camarón made it great.
The best flamenco guitarist and the best flamenco singer: they admired each other and made history together.
I interviewed him here in 2004…
To Paco? What did he tell you?
That the guitar is very badass.
Their love-hate relationship… “How comfortable pianists have it!” he said. The guitar is demanding, the guitar is hard.
¿Dura?
When the tour approached, Paco had to get calluses on his fingers from playing: very painful! The guitar hurts.
I did not know that.
And then he lost his nerve when composing: he needed fine fingers.
Have your hands ever failed you?
He almost lost a hand once while fishing…
Spear fishing! Her eyes were shining as she told me.
He was happy fishing like this in the Pacific of Mexico. I was scared waiting for him in the boat: he would dive, disappear for long minutes… And he would come out with a big fish!
“I only catch what I’m going to eat.”
“I catch more fish if I imagine the fish I see in the oven,” he told me. And so he cooked them. One day a coral cut the tendons in one hand… and there he was able to finish his career.
He told me that he was tired of going on tour…
He spaced out recitals more and more: he did not want to repeat with Antonia and Diego his many absences with his previous children.
At three years old, Antonia scared Alejandro Sanz’s daughter, Paco told me.
Ha ha! It’s true. And Paco was a very clown, and with Diego they sang together in the streets.
He didn’t become a singer because he was shy, he confided to me.
In Camarón he found the beautiful and sweet voice that he had dreamed of.
“I played badly”: he told me about his performance.
“Don’t say that,” I scolded him. But he sought a singular perfection. Paco did not give himself importance, he never became infatuated.
“Life is a joke, a theater.”
He laughed at pomp and solemnity, he always laughed at everything, together we laughed a lot.
But he took the scenario seriously: “I go up scared to death,” he confessed to me.
No jokes the hours before playing.
That’s why he didn’t pose for the photo, I remember.
“I look ugly,” he told me. I took photos of him and he did like them. That’s why the photos of their last two albums are mine.
Who were your best friends?
In the military he made two friends, Carlos Rebató and Manuel Ramírez, who were his best, close friends all his life.
What did Paco de Lucía believe in?
In which you did not have to pursue happiness nor did you have to expect anything: just receive what came and get the most out of it.
