Manolo Sanlúcar, master of flamenco guitar, dies at the age of 78

He admired the beautiful. She dreamed portraits. She colored the border. Thus, his malagueña ‘Puerto de Málaga’, for example, is not developed as a snapshot, rather it tries to be an indomitable canvas with which to improve the vision of that port. That is to say, it crawls through other, more fragile and deeper codes. Something similar to what happens in the ‘Patio Jerez’ made into a bulería, his ‘Cañaveral’ in the guajira or the ‘Joys of Torre Tavira’. The chords do not paint what they see, but what they want. That’s it. those of ‘birth’, so simple, portray Andalusia in its entirety, in one sentence. They make it ideal in the ring. Oneiric. He is the teacher of several generations. The reference. That sage with the sculpted fingerboard between experiences and readings that make his work one of the most important manifestations in Spanish music of the last century. From his life, a gift. And from this absence, a drop of blackness that we had been attending to from afar as non-negotiable blows are seen, without wanting to see it.

‘bullfighting’his greatest work

‘bullfighting’, for many scholars the best flamenco guitar album ever recorded, is its main piece, with highlights such as the rondeña ‘Oción’ and the alegrías ‘Puerta del Príncipe’, in addition to ‘Maestranza’, perhaps the largest. That window into the friendly universe of his compositions arouses the interest of fans and shows what he hides behind the cape, with José Mercé and the Indio Gitano moaning in the background. The album ‘Andalusian will’ it looks like a string of towns that, like Albéniz’s ‘Iberia’, runs through this South where he died, although he already gave up his life for him years ago. Manolo Sanlúcar discovered symphonic music and entered the space of movements, of the classics. The different volumes of ‘World and forms of flamenco guitar’ they are the philosopher’s stone of the modern touch. The common source. ‘Inspiraciones’, his early ‘Flamenco Recital’, ‘Sanlúcar’, ‘Sentimiento’, the tribute to Miguel Hernández in ‘Y regress’, his ‘Fantasia for guitar and orchestra’, ‘Come and follow me’ with El Lebrijano and Rocío Jurado, ‘Candela’, ‘Azahares’, ‘Medea’ and ‘Locura de brisa y trino’ together with Carmen Linares, among many others, make up a mosaic that makes beauty an extreme goal. He arrives furious, but between caresses, he never lacked a note or gave more than one of her creations. The measure, that is. The rhythm that Octavio Paz talks about in ‘El arco y la lira’ flows naturally through his fingertips. It is poetry. Balance without scaffolding. Whiteness from which to observe crowded the most subtle worlds.

He began to walk as a soloist, in general lines, at the same time as Paco de Lucia and Serranitothe other two banners of his generation. Surely the most fruitful in history. He had Javier Molina as a teacher, and even Jerez de la Frontera, where he died in hospital, he went to receive lessons. He also learned from Ramón Montoya, Niño Ricardo and Sabicas, from whom so many drank. He lived with La Niña de los Peines, who took him in as a child, and her husband, singer Pepe Pinto, before joining Pepe Marchena’s company. In the tablaos, he imposed the solo instrument, thus following what Serranito had started a year before. He later found himself playing at New York’s Carnegie Hall. All over the world, actually. Locked in the dim room of his tremolos and at the same time programmed in the main squares of the planet.

Manolo Sanlúcar does not have themes, but compositions. Only ‘Black Horse’ (“A theme, please, Manolo, give us a theme,” they told him from the CBS company) escapes from this line in the form of a rumba. It is, without a doubt, another of his memorable inventions. A The Paquera de Jerezwhich Manolito calls in a recording by fandangos from the mid-60s, ‘Que te he querío’, accompanied Manuel Agujetas, Enrique Morente, Terremoto, El Lebrijano and many other artists both in the studio and live.

Son of a guitarist father, Isidro Munoz, and brother of the shared bohemia, the bitterness for the loss of a son clouded his clear days in front of Doñana. He always preferred solitude. Looking back in the common memory of his people until he finds his own. In recent years, in fact, he worked in a encyclopedia about this culture from a musical perspective entitled ‘The flamenco guitar’which you saw was published a few months ago.

Teacher of several generations

The outreach and teaching were other of his great works. Without Manolo Sanlúcar, so to speak, we would not understand expressions like those of Juan Carlos Romero, one of his disciples, or Manolo Franco. Nor those of young people like Paco Vidal, Santiago Lara or David Carmona, who received the attitude, the ritual that orbits around this job from him. Likewise, those who did not drink directly have something of their own. In the conception of the falseta, in the structure. Pure musical architecture gifted with a sense that leaves no loose fringes. Therein lies our debt to him: he is a link between the old and the current. He added concept to virtuosity. Cleanliness, creativity and order.

A documentary film premiered in 2019 addresses his contribution to culture: ‘The legacy’, directed by Juanma Suárez Japan. And perhaps these are the only words that outline his merit with true honesty: bequeath, contribute. Gold Medal for Merit in Fine Arts, walked on the shoulders of a giant and then rose above them. She shone in a golden moment. Now the light of her sonanta has left us. Chipiona lighthouse that today boasts of it at street level, with a recently released monument. This is how he who always considered himself a “guitar slave” has been freed. Dying. Leaving an orphan to a luminous sound that from today has no father.