Sunday, May 6, 2012

La Paquera de Jerez y Parrilla de Jerez - Bulerias por Solea

Arte flamenco. Cante: La Paquera de Jerez; Toque: Parrilla de Jerez

Francisca Méndez Garrido, was born in Calle Cerro Fuerte, Jerez, in 1934, and spent the last half of the twentieth century at the center of flamenco activity. She became a kind of matriarch of the flamenco of Jerez de la Frontera and spent many years performing in the tablaos of Madrid and Seville. In 1971 she was awarded the Niña de los Peines trophy at the Cordoba Nacional Concurso de Cante Flamenco. She is one of the most majestic singers to come out of Jerez de la Frontera in the last century and she gained the title of Queen of the buleriás. She was like a volcano waiting to erupt, her soleares and bulerias were performed with fire and deep emotion and her tientos and fandangos executed with that indefinable art of the gypsies of Jerez. Although La Paquera was a cuchichi or half gypsy, she possessed that quality that the gypsies seem to be able to inject into their flamenco, a colorful, exciting flow of rhythm and heart rending song
. In her long career she has worked with many guitarists of Jerez, including the brothers Manuel and Juan Morao but her favorite accompanist was Parrillita de Jerez. La Paquera de Jerrez was a symbol of all that is good within her race, she sang with a source of emotional impact that only seems possible from the gypsies of Jerez de la Frontera. La Paquera died at the age of seventy, in Jerez de la Frontera in 2004. She will be remembered as one of the giants of female flamenco.

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