As an aficionado of el Cante, my concern about guitarists is governed by the degree to which they tastefully and sympathetically accompany the singer. Hence, my knowledge about the art of flamenco guitar performance as a special area of expertise is extremely limited--what I don't know about guitar would fill libraries. But certain guitarists do stand out--certainly Diego del Gastor is one. His genius as an accompanist to cante seems to stem both from his skills and gifts as a guitarist, and also from his close relationship over the years with those singers most closely associated with him, La Fernanda and Perrate, especially. There was a rapport there that was palpable.

But the phenomenon of the Diego phenomenon; his incredible popularity and influence among young Americans and other non-Spaniards during the last dozen or so years of his life, with its carryover effect into the present day, has yet to be the subject of objective study (to my knowledge). I'd like to see someone not emotionally or biographically too close to Diego or to Moron de la Frontera or to the late Donn Pohren write a history of that time, that place, those people, and of the ongoing effects of that whole scene. I've understood that there has been a lot of discussion, some very emotional, rapturous, and even venomous, among various partisans from that time, but what I'm looking for is the sort of history that we'll be able to read 50 years from now, that will tell future students of flamenco just what went on in Moron de la Frontera in the middle years of the 20th century.

Does anyone out there have any recommendations?

Carlos

Very interesting post. What Donn Pohren does not say much about is the many that did not live at the finca and studied with Diego. If you can read Spanish you might read, "Diego del Gastor EL ECO DE UNOS TOQUES by Angel Sody De Rivas. I am poor at reading Spanish, but from what I have figured out, this book has stories and information that no other has. I got mine from Spain and with the euro exchange and shipping, it cost me over $50. It has lots of cante verses and other interesting information. I think it is the only recent book on Moron and Diego.

If you haven't already you might check out Steves Kahn's webpage full of information and I recommend his CD with Marysol.
http://www.stevekahn.com/guitarist/index.html

Check every page for links. His site is loaded with info, photos, and stories. He knew and accompanied many of the great singers and dancers and still has the "magic" if you will, when he accompanies Marysol.

I think what set Moron apart from the rest of the flamenco scene in Spain at that time was the lack of commercialism and the improvisational Juergas. Pohren was not part of many of these juergas so he couldn't write about them.

Sam, thanks for your reply. I've looked at Steve Kahn's website and several others, and I'll keep tracking down further leads. What I eventually hope to find will be something that explores--how important was it that Donn Pohren saw Carmen Amaya perform in Mexico while still in his teens; to what extent did that trigger his move to Spain; the details of how he first came to learn about Diego del Gastor; what motivated him to write El Arte de Flamenco; what effect the publication of that book had to draw young Americans and other non-Spaniards to Andalusia; where did Pohren get the idea of setting up the Finca Espartero; was Pohren the only influence drawing foreigners to Moron, or were there other forces at work? It is clear that Diego's personality then served to draw people to him, once they came to meet and know him and see how he lived and breathed flamenco and the flamenco lifestyle. What was then the ongoing relationhip between Pohren and Diego? So many questions, I know; there's at least a PhD thesis here, and then a book. I can't wait to read it!

Thanks in advance for anybody's input.

Carlos

Sam, one thousand "muchas gracias" for the inception of the Archivos de Moron de la Frontera sub-forum! I'm sure this will go a long way toward unraveling the mysteries of the Moron era. I've got my reading ahead of me........ With any luck at all, this new sub-forum will become the home for much future Moron de la Frontera commentary and scholarship, carried on in an objective but friendly atmosphere.

Carlos

Carlos sorry to have not responded sooner. My knowledge is second hand and the combining of a few students of Diego's stories.

Pohren is credited with attracting many flamencos to Moron, however not that many ever stayed at the Finca. Most stayed in town. Diego saw Pohren on occasion at the finca if he was invited to a paid juerga and also in town usually at Pepe's bar. Many of the well known students of Moron lived near Diego and saw him daily and were part of juergas that went on in town that Pohren knew nothing about. I will put some info on Chris Carnes in the Moron de la Frontera section. It may open a whole new understanding for you of what moron was about in those days.

The idea that anyone that did not stay at the Finca was a druggie is false. It is true a few were ask to leave the finca for using marijuana, but these types were not tolerated by Diego. Moron was a stop off for drug runners, but this was not connected to the serious students of flamenco that went to Moron to learn. Many from the San Francisco Bay area flamenco knew Pohren because he had a flamenco restaurant there and told tales of magic of Moron and the gypsies unaffected by the Franco dictatorship. Some of these flamencos had long hair, etc that earned them the label of hippie. The few that appeared hippie gave many foreigners the idea that Moron was just a hippie drug hangout and the flamenco was just an excuse. This false idea is still believed by many flamencos today. The SF bay area still has many that experienced the magic of Moron in those years and they keep it alive today. They went there for pure gypsy flamenco and they found it.

Hopefully this has given you a better picture of what happened in Moron in those years. Pohren is best known and certainly did draw many to Moron with his books, but he and his Finca played a smaller role IMO than they are credited for. Some of the videos of Moron testify to this. Pohren was out at the Finca while these great juergas were happening. It is great that a few videoed these improvisational juergas or they would only be stories told from memory.

Jacinto wrote:

ARTICLE2.doc

Wonderful article and more insight into Moron. I am still amazed at how many foreigners spent time in Moron during 1950-1973. I wish I had gone but was a day late and a dollar short so to speak. Also my Spanish was minimal.
This article agrees with my idea on the town and Finca groups relationship. Thanks for posting this!

Jacinto's ARTICLE2.doc Word document on flamenco history and Moron/Diego should, in my view, be transferred to either the Moron or the Informacion Historica sub-forums, so that it doesn't slowly disappear over the horizon. I believe that future visitors or members of this Forum will find this document quite useful for quite some time to come. Hope this can be done.

Carlos

Here's something I wrote a long long time ago about the hippies and Moron (Kind of embarrassing now to me to read what I wrote then, but what the hell)


1971. It was the year the hippies came to Morón. The year of grass and acid. The year that they were growing grass on the roofs of the old houses and turning on the gypsies. So many foreign aficionados studying flamenco had so many friends. These so many friends had other friends in so many places like Formentera and Morocco and so many second and third-hand friends of them came to Morón.
For me, this was supposed to be a year like every year I spent in Morón, running towards the Ninteenth Century. Trying to escape my own culture that both attracted and repelled me. Now I sit in the bar looking out at the hippies there, reminded of my dilemma. I envied their freedom, but hated their soft-headed thinking. I despised their I Ching politics, their Beatle Metaphysics. I hated them here even more than I did back in the States. There, bare feet in a dog-beshitted city was amusing. Here, their bare feet disgusted me. Not because they didn't wear shoes, but because they were in a place in which people did wear shoes. And because the people here worked long and hard to wear shoes. And, I guess, because the ever-polished pointed shoes here were a quaint part of a culture that was melting away into the alloy of euroamericulture.
The men still slicked their hair back here, and when I came here, I slicked my hair back. Dungarees were strictly for work days in the fields and cut-off jeans were for fisherman. I left my jeans back in New York.
The hippies sat around in various interior and exterior places playing steel string guitars, only sometimes showing a momentary and passing interest in. The americans spent most of their time writing folk-rock, the europeans spent their time trying to learn how to play and sing popular american songs.
Outside, the Californians had started playing frisbie in the Plaza San Miguel. On the one side of the plaza, there was the church with its Eleventh, Sixteenth, Eighteenth Century sections. Near the church is the Bar Pepe. In front, looking out from the bar onto the plaza, frisbie. Blonde, in cut-off jeans and without shirts, they tossed the plastic disc around in the 114 degrees of Andalucian summer. They kept their attention focused on the plastic disk as it floated by the ancient church, floated by the old Moorish castle, floated by the bar with the singing inside.
The hippies were early risers. They went to the market early, searching out brown rice and vegetables. Then they went back home quickly to get high. They were never at the bar in the mornings when we would return from fiestas for a drink before bed.
No real moral to this story. Except that I still feel a little weird about having slicked my hair back.
Jacinto

Odano Icifa wrote:Jacinto's ARTICLE2.doc Word document on flamenco history and Moron/Diego should, in my view, be transferred to either the Moron or the Informacion Historica sub-forums, so that it doesn't slowly disappear over the horizon. I believe that future visitors or members of this Forum will find this document quite useful for quite some time to come. Hope this can be done.

Carlos

Hey Carlos,

As per your suggestion, the article, Moron de la Frontera- An American Aficionado’s Shangra-La, has been placed in the sub-forum, Informacion Historica.

Thanks to Jacinto for sharing this interesting information and personal experience.

Doog