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so I talked my parents into sending me to Spain for a year when I was 15 (I had already run away from home for a year and dropped out of school after 7th grade). I had read Donn Pohren's books on flamenco and stayed at his Finca Espartero in Moron de la Frontera my first month in Spain. Meeting Diego del Gastor and taking a few lessons from him was another world. Somehow flamenco seemed to me to be the sincerest form of expression, particularly Diego's playing. And exciting. And beautiful. What's not to love?
I guess this was right before they filmed Rito y Geografia over there in 1971. Just curious if you had any insight into Diego’s guitars etc. Maybe you were too young then, but, for example, we read the story about the “santos Hernandez” that his friends bought for him and he supposedly sat on it, etc. In Rito he is using an Antonio Marin with 19 frets, and some other guitar with white golpeadores. Any insight into those instruments? You say he was very simple at home, so I am wondering if he wasn’t just using other peoples guitars in those videos?
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to ernandez R)
I was inspired by Diego's personna as described by Pohren. I was focused on earning a living playing guitar and would take any paying gig. I'd play with people I didn't respect as musicians if the gig payed. I even backed an Elvis impersonator at one point.
Then I read about Diego as I was involving myself in flamenco, and the fact that this man was uninterested in the business of music was refreshing. It gave me a new perspective, and although I continued to pursue paying work, I reconnected with the idea that what really mattered was the music, and my relationship to it, to the exclusion of everything else.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ernandez R
Ethan, Thanx for sharing these… these moments in your life that off little windows to a world long gone. And ya, weren’t we all invincible at that age?
Diego Del Gastor is my flamenco hero, I won’t say he was any better or any worse then any of his contemporaries, and what do I know anyway, but he seemed so real and so full of life, yet he didn’t seem full of him self only when he did you could tell he was putting everyone on.
You mention unthread having taken a few lessons with Diego, what do you recall from them?
Posts: 1945
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to El Burdo)
I'm an American who spends all my music time playing flamenco. How could I not be? And yes, if I stopped playing flamenco I'd study jazz. So I'm hopeless in terms of earning money playing music.
quote:
ORIGINAL: El Burdo
You're a 'Luftmensch' Mark2. An honourable identity which I and my jazz friends also share
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
I guess this was right before they filmed Rito y Geografia over there in 1971. Just curious if you had any insight into Diego’s guitars etc. Maybe you were too young then, but, for example, we read the story about the “santos Hernandez” that his friends bought for him and he supposedly sat on it, etc. In Rito he is using an Antonio Marin with 19 frets, and some other guitar with white golpeadores. Any insight into those instruments? You say he was very simple at home, so I am wondering if he wasn’t just using other peoples guitars in those videos?
I don't know what make of guitar he owned, but it wasn't very good. He sometimes borrowed my guitar for performances! It was a Contreras that I got new through Pohren. I found it hard to play and never liked it very much. When he borrowed my guitar he would say, "No te pasa nada la guitarra"--maybe because I looked a little apprehensive. Diego had very strong hands (and thick nails) and could play any guitar. He liked my guitar. I also saw him like other guitars that were not very good and very hard to play, but from which he could produce a good sound. The guitar with the extensive golpeador was his own guitar; he tended to dig his fingers in down below the treble end of the bridge, and sometimes thumped guitars so hard that he went through the soundboard.
sometimes thumped guitars so hard that he went through the soundboard.
Olé!
On that issue, Ethan, would you recommend installing a second, smaller golpeador (roughly the size of a credit card) on top of the initial golpeador if one happens to have a heavy golpe?
On that issue, Ethan, would you recommend installing a second, smaller golpeador (roughly the size of a credit card) on top of the initial golpeador if one happens to have a heavy golpe?
I don't think it would hurt. Some golpeadores are much thicker than others and the thick ones don't seem to be a problem for the sound. On the other hand, I'm not sure it would help. I would recommend just using what's there--and then buying new handmade guitars as they wear out. Maybe limit the number of fingers doing golpes to one at a time.
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
More stories, Ethan!
Before I ever thought about going to Spain, an adult friend lent me the book, "The Gypsies," by Jan Yoors. It is my favorite book. I've read it at least three times. (I named my son after Jan Yoors.) It chronicles Yoors' experiences with the Rom, whom he ran away from home to travel with when he was 12 years old. I highly recommend it to everyone. Yoors also wrote "The Gypsies of Spain" and he was in Morón when I was there. We were practically rubbing shoulders, he in a deep conversation with Pohren, all of us at the bar at Casa Pepe. I wanted to say something but couldn't find an opening; I was shy. He also wrote "Crossing," a sequel to "The Gypsies," which describes his experiences with the Rom during WWII.
I don't know all the details but Yoors, originally from Belgium, ended up living in New York City with two wives--at the same time; they would take turns being the legal wife. When I saw him in Morón, he was traveling with a much younger, beautiful Asian-looking woman with whom he was clearly intimate. Long after he died, I had an email exchange with his son Kore, who invited me to see him in NYC, but unfortunately I never made it back there. (I had lived in NYC for a year in 1975.)
Yoors also wrote "The Gypsies of Spain" and he was in Morón when I was there.
Any insight to who the Cantaor at the end of that book was? The one just outside of Sevilla? My mind was leaning towards Juan Talega, but maybe the date didn’t work.
I really enjoyed his observations about the Sevilla region. I feel his observations, taken with Borrow and Estebanez Calderon, paint an important picture of the “flamenco gitanos” as a distinct group from the “GITANO gitanos” as Jan puts it, and seems a bit overlooked by flamencologists. Even the photography of the book is making this error IMO. But he states the situation loud and clear.
Yours has been a life well-lived, Ethan. It would be almost impossible to experience today what you experienced back then because the same circumstances no longer exist. You were very fortunate to have been able to do so at the time when it could still be done.
If possible, I would like to see a series of photographs like the couple you have already posted that were taken over the period of your adventures in Spain. Have you ever thought of publishing a book about that period of your life?
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
Any insight to who the Cantaor at the end of that book was? The one just outside of Sevilla? My mind was leaning towards Juan Talega, but maybe the date didn’t work.
The one called "El Maestro," right? Sorry, no idea.
Yeah, I think I know what you mean about the distinction between the two groups of Gitanos. The flamencos and the ones in the north who I think of as the clan of Manitas de Plata, who lacked even compás.
Posts: 1696
Joined: Jan. 29 2012
From: Seattle, Washington, USA
RE: Why do you love flamenco? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
If possible, I would like to see a series of photographs like the couple you have already posted that were taken over the period of your adventures in Spain. Have you ever thought of publishing a book about that period of your life?
Bill, I didn't have a camera when I was there. I borrowed one from a friend on one of my last days there. There are a few more photos on my website. The ones of Diego were in the apartment when I arrived, prints that is.
Another thing I did was buy shoes as a going-away present for the three daughters of Maria, the widow of Diego's nephew Fernando who died in a car accident shortly before I arrived.
I have often thought about writing an autobiographical book but I don't think I have enough to say about my time in Spain for a book specifically about that.
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