Rito y Geografía del Cante Flamenco - Diego del Gastor

Photo by Steve Kahn.

Arriate, a little town in the Málaga-area Ronda mountains, bears witness to the birth of Diego Flores Amaya, the son of Bárbara and Juan, a cattle dealer. When the boy is four years old, the family originally from Grazalema settles in El Gastor, in the neighboring province of Cádiz. And from that whitewashed town of his childhood and teen years, he would take the stage name Diego del Gastor; he who ‘revolutionized’ flamenco toque from (and for) Morón de la Frontera.

Once the family had settled in Morón, they say the teen Diego used to spend hours playing the guitar. “Later on, his friendship with Pepe Naranjo and Pepe Mesa made Diego develop and reach a very personal style”, as Fernando González-Caballos specifies in the book ‘Guitarras de cal’. It was thus how he made contact with “the school of Moron, which begins with Paco el de Lucena”. And also key was his close relationship with cantaor Joselero, who would become his brother-in-law, besides one of the cantaores his guitar would provide accompaniment for. Then in the fifties, he also made direct contact with Niño Ricardo, when the Sevillian maestro was working at El Guajiro. “Diego felt great admiration for Niño Ricardo’s art and when they ran into each other at Siete Puertas it seemed like a duel of titans: they handed the guitar back and forth to one another, exchanging falsetas”, Sody explains. {more}