Eating in the idyllic town of Arbuniel, in the Sierra Mágina de Jaén, a place where we spent many nights with Enrique Morente looking at the aquifers under the stars while he sang a cappella, I had a feeling today, Saturday. I wondered how Manolo Sanlúcar was doing. Minutes later he picked up his cell phone and saw the bitter news of his death.
I saw him and hugged him at his last concert in Catalonia, when six years ago he had to fail while already on stage at the Palau de la Música Catalana, at the Mas i Mas festival, because, as he explained to his audience, he was getting worse and worse and the medications he was taking were making his hands paralyzed.
That day I did not hug him in the dressing room, as I used to do, but at the foot of the ambulance, with a picture of anxiety. I was crushed. He had met him in 1970, through Enrique Morente, when he was already a consolidated guitarist. He was 27 years old. It was when we set up the Peña Flamenca in the Barcelona neighborhood of Verdun, the current Nou Barris, which the Civil Government did not legalize until the following year. That was the beginning of the actions in what became the Metropolitan Area: Hospitalet, Cornellà, Badalona, Cerdanyola… the great Barcelona.
Sanlúcar, who was a convinced Andalusian, with a great social conscience, worried about that Andalusian diaspora that followed the Civil War, having as there was enough wealth, participated in those concerts in neighborhoods where anti-Francoist people organized to improve the living conditions of degraded areas that did not have adequate services. On a couple of occasions he came accompanying Enrique Morente.
For Andalusia he gave his life. He was a Blas Infante. The diaspora hurt him. And he claimed that historians pay more attention to the massacres suffered by entire Andalusian towns at the end of the war. Or the so-called Desbandá, from 1937, with the air force charging against thousands of people who were fleeing from Málaga along the road to Almería. Manolo was with those questions of the soul, very thoughtful about why history did not echo more of that massacre.
Artistically he was a creator. Since he composed Fantasia for guitar and orchestra. You just have to listen to his album Tauromagia. Anyone, even if they are not a lover of flamenco and music in general, listens to that and wonders… why are we here?
He was in love with flamenco at all levels. He gave his life for that art and also in any debate or discussion on the subject. He was an intellectual, a well-read person who did not stop. And he was sure of what he considered this music to be, this dance, this cante. He had a specific idea about the codes that had to support this art. Especially in terms of the guitar, the instrument with which he expressed himself.
With the purists he did not argue. He didn't want confrontation. He called them traditional classics, because purism, he said, is impossible. Thanks to them, he said, there was a legacy that was being transformed, some foundations that were present, but not frozen.
He attended several seminars at the Taller de Músics in Barcelona, where we mixed jazz and flamenco musicians. And he taught classes. But the milestone occurred in 1989, sponsored by the Cultural Olympiad whose musical part was led by Mingus B. Formentor. The first Carmen Amaya International Flamenco Seminar, in Bagur, was of paramount importance. Sanlúcar, the bailaora Matilde Coral, Rafael El Negro, the solo guitarist Sabicas, attended his last performance in Spain, since he would not return from New York, and also Enrique Morente.
When they were young, there was Maite Martín, Juan Ramon Caro, Chicuelo... but we mixed them with artists from other genres, like the jazz player Cecil Taylor. Manolo was of capital importance, giving his opinion on the pillars of the guitar and on how previous generations, Manolo de Huelva or Montoya, had laid incredible foundations, notoriously difficult. Flamenco wasn't just a matter of inspiration, you had to bend your elbows. A priori illiterate people, as happened with the musicians who established the codes of jazz.
His generation, Paco de Lucía, Enrique Morente, El Lebrijano or Serranito – Camarón was eight years younger – had used those tools. And Manolo not only had creativity and inspiration, but his intention was very flamenco. He had taken care to learn officially. And he fought to have his own sound, he had some very personal falsetas. You easily identified them.
The father of Manuel Muñoz Alcón, that was his name, was already a guitarist as well as a baker, and his brother Isidro is one of the most important composers in the world of flamenco, as well as an arranger and player. Many artists want him as a producer. And the saga does not end here. His younger brother, José Miguel Evora, opted for classical music, trained in conservatories, but he did not abandon flamenco.
His discography totals 24 albums. It started in 1968 and then it was non-stop. In 1976 he composes Fantasia for guitar and orchestra, with which he reveals his vocation as a composer. And from then on his works are his own… Candela, Andalusian Testament… But in 1988 Tauromagia marks a lot. In 1992 he composed Soleá for the Spanish National Ballet. And with Locura de brisa y trino, one of his last works, released in 2000, he influenced other young artists, especially guitarists such as Vicente Amigo or Riqueni. And he won the National Music Award.
Because Sanlúcar believed that it was very important to go on stage, compose, record, but it was equally important to teach. He was very interested in the pedagogy of music and flamenco. No myths that this is carried in the blood: it can be learned, if there is an ear, talent and circumstances, he said.
His wife, Ana, always accompanied him when he left Sanlúcar. She gave him security and stability. They had only one child, who died relatively young, at the age of 30, and from then on the marriage fell into a pit of sadness and pain. Manolo wrote a book, The shared soul, a mixture of autobiography linked to the death of his son. "When I start looking for the god who killed my son, I end up finding the god who cries with me," he wrote. When he uttered these words he was very affected by pain.
