Kings Of Guitars

Read the story while Listening to their music... Opening his instrument case on a tour bus between Warsaw and Krakow in Poland, the French Gypsy jazzman Christian Escoude took out his guitar and said : " I hate Gypsies with guitars," Gypsies are everywhere, and everywhere they play guitars, Irony aside , they are generally so good at it that it is just about impossible to hate gypsy with a guitar. It is only that they are different from the rest of us – Gypsies are , that is , not guitar players , though them too. The families: The Reyes (Nicolas, Canut, Pablo,Andre, and patchai) and the Baliardos ( Tonino, paco, And Diego) who make up the gipsy Kings are descended from such Gypsy guitar legends as Jose Reyes and Manitas de Plata. The things about their Catalan /Occitan/Flamenco groove is that , although you've heard it – and he grainy voices wailing those eternal melodies above it – so many times before, it is as though you are forever listening to it for the first time.The gypsies are a poor nation without a state of their own who are foreigners everywhere. They have been uprooted on the road for centuries – for so long that the absence of rots has become a root of its own. Like Joao Gilberto singing in portugese, the language they sing in is of secondary importance.how the language swings is what counts; how the lyrics are slotted into the groove. A groove, incidentally, is the generation of good musical feeling through rhythmic means alone. The concept of a groove comes from Africa. There is no such thing as a bad groove – it either grooves or it doesn't. A groove is its own reward. A groove is a rare and wonderful event in music that is widely popular in the western world, and the Gipsy Kings are about as good as popular music can get. They really are Kings