some beautiful guitarists from France

September 4, 2007 9:56 AM

Flamenco clearly belongs to spain. But so many immigrants came to France to find work or escape from the civil war that there is a small community of guitarists in southern France who are playing it with original voices. Bernardo Sandoval was the subject of a post in mefi music some time ago. Antonio "kiko" ruiz is about to come to the United States with Renaud-Garcia-Fons : their work can be seen here. Serge Lopez is another great guitarist who puts some guitar parts on his website. Salvador Paterna adds to the traditional sound of flamenco both the 'oud and the violin. They are all from or nearby Toulouse.
posted by nicolin (8 comments total)

I am reminded of the remark by Lenny Bruce that flemenco male dancers are always looking behind to make sure their butts are still there.
posted by Postroad at 10:22 AM on September 4, 2007

Probably the most well known French artists of music with flamenco rhythms: Gipsy Kings

Tonino Baliardo, their lead guitarist, has also released original music outside the group.
posted by cmgonzalez at 10:52 AM on September 4, 2007

Big flamenco fan here. Totally love that finger plucking bliss. Kiko Ruiz' music is heaven. Aaahhh! Cool post. Had no idea about French flamenco guitarists. Exciting. Have to get a Renaud Garcia Fons and Kiki Ruiz CD! Sweet! Their site.

Flamenco dancer heart throb de jour, Joaquín Cortés, ripplingly macho. *faints
posted by nickyskye at 10:59 AM on September 4, 2007

The Gipsy kings' style stems for the most part from a style we call "rumba catalane" which is played by the gipsies on the mediterranean coast. Rumba is just a style among many others, Flamenco includes many other combinations of rhythms/chords, called palos (check the wiki link which includes samples towards its end).
posted by nicolin at 11:19 AM on September 4, 2007

Thanks nicolin. No Flamenco post is complete without the late Cameron de la isla here with Tomatito
Cameron was the catalyst for "nuevo flamenco". Over 100,000 people attended his funeral.
posted by adamvasco at 12:32 PM on September 4, 2007

Thanks for the post, nicolin. Right away, I was grooving on the first 2 links I clicked on at random (MySpace pages for Ruiz and Paterna).
posted by flapjax at midnite at 4:34 PM on September 4, 2007

Right on.
posted by Wolof at 1:12 AM on September 5, 2007

A lot of Spanish Gitano Gypsies moved to Lyons to work in the automobile factories in the 70s, and flamenco is one of their strong family traditions. I was lucky to be present at an impromptu flamenco event after playing at a folk festval in Nantes in 2000. A very professional family troupe who had been on stage before us held a dance in their backstage band trailer after the stages had closed down. It was nothing like the stage show - it was all singing about family honor, deferring to the matriarchs, and singing about factory promotions to the sound of very sparse guitar and hand claps. The big moment was always when one of the older Aunts would get up and dance - very, very retrained. And no, their butts never fell off.
posted by zaelic at 3:10 AM on September 5, 2007