Stories about famous flamencos (as told by El Entri)

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guitarristamadrid

Posts: 133
Joined: Jan. 27 2010

Stories about famous flamencos (as t...

Hey guys, thought you might get a kick out of these. As you may or may not know, Entri has had a long ass career in the Madrid tablaos since the 70s and has known just about every flamenco player you could imagine. Hanging out with him over the years, he would frequently nostalgically recount stories of Sabicas, etc. Here are some I can remember off the top of my head.

ABOUT SABICAS' FINGER NAILS-
Entri asked to examine his right hand once, and he said that each of Sabicas' nails was a different, totally weird shape. He said "One was like a watermelon, another was like a potato, a third like a banana"

PACO: WITH OR WITHOUT NAIL
One time Entri was hanging out with Paco somewhere, and Paco was really warmed up and ripping off a bunch of fast scales. Something happened and a piece of one of Paco's nails broke (it was I or M), leaving a jagged ruined edge. He stuck the finger into his mouth, bit off the remaining part of the nail, and continued the fast scales without any problem.

MELCHOR DE MARCHENA
Entri hung out with Melchor a lot back in the day and said he was an amazing player, with one of the most puro sounds ever. One time, after they had played in some tablao, a young kid came up to Melchor and wanted to show him his fancy new guitar. The guitar was very expensive, someone had bought it for him. The kid was very proud of it and wanted to know what Melchor thought. Melchor played the guitar a little bit, and said it was excellent. He handed it back to him. "Now buy yourself some hands"

PACO COMMENTS ON GERARDO
One time Paco went to see a show of Gerardo Nunez, at some point when Gerardo was starting to get big. After the show, a reporter asked Paco what he thought of the performance. Paco said he didn't like it. When the reporter asked why, Paco said "Because he didn't even make a single mistake"

AWESOME SABICAS QUOTE
One time Sabicas apparently said "I'll tell you a secret. Almost all guitars sound good" meaning that what most players were lacking was technique.

ENTRI'S ALTERNATIVE NAME FOR RASGEOS
One time we were all playing rasgeo compas exercises again and again, and Entri was not happy with our performance. He said "Do you know what the other name for rasgeos is?"
"What?" "Euros!" Meaning that if you can't play good rageos, you ain't getting paid

PACO IS TWISTED
I swear to god this is how Entri told it to me, one night when we were eating dinner at his house. Paco had finished playing a concert, and people were coming up to him and chatting with him. A young gitano guy came up and said to Paco "Maestro, I want to play really well like you. But I don't want to practice all that technique all day long, I think that's ****. A true artist should really just feel the guitar. How can I do that?" Paco said "Hmm... shove it up your ass"

_____________________________

Sometimes music is all you got in this world. Why do I create music? Because there was a time when I had nothing, and music kept me alive.

www.myspace.com/evancary

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2010 15:13:53

Elie

Posts: 1837
Joined: Apr. 10 2010

RE: Stories about famous flamencos (... (in reply to guitarristamadrid)

hehehe thank you for these stories

I've always thought that Paco has a high humor sense
so Sabicas has some vegetables on his nails thats interesting lol
about the second story .. yea i've seen that on a video as I remember he was playin fast scales and something went wrong with his nail so all wat he did is bit it off and spit it and continue plain like nothin happened

REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Apr. 15 2010 22:00:30