Hello Everybody,

I heard something very interesting the other day and want to share it with the guitar community in general. Is it true? nobody can say as all persons involved have long since deceased. If you are interested please read on; while ordering sheet music from Fine Fretted Instruments the owner, Randy Osborne told me that Paco de Lucena is the father of Andres Segovia! Mr. Osborne went on further and told me that Richard Brune confirmed the information stating that he had known since the 1960's. Interestingly Segovia's 1st guitar was given to him by Paco de Lucena. Mr. Segovia played flamenco in his youth and didn't develop a bad attitude towards the art form, referring to it as noisy music, until much later in the 1930's when Ramon Montoya was receiving much critical acclaim in Europe. If the aforementioned is true it would be ironic that the most famous classical guitarist in history comes from a flamenco family.

That is an interesting possibility. This wiki page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_Segovia states:

"Though it is not yet completely documented, it seems clear that, since his tender childhood, [Segovia] learnt playing as a flamenco guitarist. The first guitar he owned had formerly been played by Paco de Lucena who died when Segovia was five years old. Since then, Segovia was given some instruction by Agustinillo, an amateur flamenco player who was a fan of Paco de Lucena."

Alvarez

First information on Wilipedia is unreliable. Anyone can edit the information and change it to their liking. Paco de Lucena (the real PdL) was the teacher of Pepe Mesa who taught Pepe Naranjo who taught Diego del Gastor. One has to remember that their learning wasn't structured lessons as much as watching and listening which is the old gypsy way known as oral tradition.

Since Segovia started playing at age ten and Lucena died when he was five, I would say trying to link Segovia to Lucena is unlikely. Segovia was basically self taught and whether he received instruction from an amateur flamenco player, a student of Lucena, is doubtful because his family did not associate with people considered lower class. His family was against him playing the guitar, because of the "vulgar" association. Before Segovia the guitar was not considered a concert instrument. Classical guitar played in public was usually in bars. It wasn't taken seriously. Flamenco no doubt had an influence on Segovia, but since it was gypsy music and gypsies were looked down on by the upper crust and those that would help Segovia in his quest to make the guitar a concert instrument, he had to distance himself from it. He replaced oral tradition with a strict structured way of approaching the guitar. It was patterned after teaching classical piano.