The Great Flamenco Guitarist, Paco de Lucia, Dies of a Heart Attack in Mexico

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Paco de Lucia.
(I wish I knew to whom credit for this photo should go.  I found it on the internet.)

"So farewell then, Paco de Lucía.

Those late night sessions in London were unforgettable. The rumour had run among the cognoscenti that one of your brothers, or a close relative owned a restaurant on the Fulham Road called the Costa del Sol, and this was strategically situated right next to the famous London Guitar Studio.

Those in the know said that if you booked a table at the restaurant on a concert night, the whole Paco de Lucía entourage would arrive at the restaurant after the show and move to a basement room in the restaurant where they would eat, drink, play music, sing and be merry all night long.

So, after a knock-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall, featuring a very young Paco alongside a steady Larry Coryell and an utterly frenetic John McLaughlin, in which the unquestioned talent of Paco shone, we scrambled to the Costa del Sol for dinner.

True enough, after about half an hour Paco de Lucía arrived with three or four other dark-haired men, all carrying guitar cases. They all went downstairs. We strung out our meal as much as possible and eventually, as the rest of the diners left, we got our chance and asked if we could go downstairs to congratulate the great man. We were told we could. This led to the first of three great evenings at that famous restaurant.

Paco de Lucía was more than a virtuoso guitarist and exploratory composer, he was in my opinion the finest producer that flamenco music ever had.

Paco, I always thought you were the genius behind Camarón. It was your tact and dexterity in the recording studio that drew out that tormented singer's best moments.

And the concerts with Larry and John: a revelation. You'll be missed." - - From my friend Harold Heckle, Associated Press, Madrid. 

Spanish  flamenco  guitarist  Paco de Lucia  dies  at  66,  BBC  News 

(Click  on  this  link  to  see  article.)

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About Gerry Dawes

Writing, Photography, & Specialized Tours of Spain & Tour Advice

For custom-designed tours of Spain, organized and lead by Gerry Dawes, and custom-planned Spanish wine, food, cultural and photographic itineraries, send inquiries to gerrydawes@aol.com.  

I have planned and led tours for such culinary stars as Chefs Thomas Keller, Mark Miller, Mark Kiffin, Michael Lomonaco and Michael Chiarello and such personalities as baseball great Keith Hernandez and led on shorter excursions and have given detailed travel advice to many other well-known chefs and personalities such as Drew Nieporent, Norman Van Aken, Karen Page and Andrew Dornenberg, Christopher Gross, Rick Moonen, James Campbell Caruso and many others.

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“The American writer and town crier for all good Spanish things Gerry Dawes . . . the American connoisseur of all things Spanish . . .” Michael Paterniti, The Telling Room: A Tale of Love, Betrayal, Revenge and The World’s Greatest Piece of Cheese

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"Gerry Dawes, I can't thank you enough for opening up Spain to me." -- Michael Chiarello on Twitter. 

"Chiarello embarked on a crash course by traveling to Spain for 10 days in 2011 with Food Arts

contributing authority Gerry Dawes, a noted expert on Spanish food and wine.  Coqueta's (Chiarello's new restaurant at Pier Five, San Francisco) chef de cuisine, Ryan McIlwraith, later joined Dawes for his own two week excursion, as well. Sampling both old and new, they visited wineries and marketplaces, as well as some of Spain's most revered dining establishments, including the Michelin three-star Arzak, Etxebarri, the temple to live fire-grilling; Tickets, the playful Barcelona tapas bar run by Ferran Adrià and his brother, Albert; and ABaC, where Catalan cooking goes avant-garde." - - Carolyn Jung, Food Arts, May 2013.

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"In his nearly thirty years of wandering the back roads of Spain," Gerry Dawes has built up a much stronger bank of experiences than I had to rely on when I started writing Iberia...His adventures far exceeded mine in both width and depth..." -- James A. Michener, author of Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections

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Gerry Dawes was awarded Spain's prestigious Premio Nacional de Gastronomía (National Gastronomy Award) in 2003. He writes and speaks frequently on Spanish wine and gastronomy and leads gastronomy, wine and cultural tours to Spain. He was a finalist for the 2001 James Beard Foundation's Journalism Award for Best Magazine Writing on Wine, won The Cava Institute's First Prize for Journalism for his article on cava in 2004, was awarded the CineGourLand “Cinéfilos y Gourmets” (Cinephiles & Gourmets) prize in 2009 in Getxo (Vizcaya) and received the 2009 Association of Food Journalists Second Prize for Best Food Feature in a Magazine for his Food Arts article, a retrospective piece about Catalan star chef, Ferran Adrià.



In December, 2009, Dawes was awarded the Food Arts Silver Spoon Award in a profile written by José Andrés.



". . .That we were the first to introduce American readers to Ferran Adrià in 1997 and have ever since continued to bring you a blow-by-blow narrative of Spain's riveting ferment is chiefly due to our Spanish correspondent, Gerry "Mr. Spain" Dawes, the messianic wine and food journalist raised in Southern Illinois and possessor of a self-accumulated doctorate in the Spanish table. Gerry once again brings us up to the very minute. . ." - - Michael & Ariane Batterberry, Editor-in-Chief/Publisher and Founding Editor/Publisher, Food Arts, October 2009. 

Pilot for a reality television series with Gerry Dawes  
on wine, gastronomy, culture and travel in Spain.

Experience Spain With Gerry Dawes: Customized Culinary, Wine & Cultural Trips to Spain & Travel Consulting on Spain

Gerry Dawes can be reached at gerrydawes@aol.com