Gipsy Kings

View moreBrowse piano sheets by Gipsy Kings on Zen Virtual Piano. The Gipsy Kings, originally Los Reyes, are a musical group from Arles, France, whose members have Catalan heritage. Although the members were born in France, their parents were mostly gitanos who fled Spain during the 1930s Spanish Civil War. José raised his sons Nicolas, André, Patchaï, François (known as “Canut”) and Paul (known as “Pablo”) to become musicians like himself, and as soon as the boys were old enough to play guitar he realised his dream of forming a family group. A group originally called Los Reyes, now the Gipsy Kings, can be read as a name that changed while the family at its centre carried on. Los Reyes’ big break is dated to 1978, when Brigitte Bardot invited the band to perform at one of her private parties. A private party invitation that opened the door can be read as luck meeting a ready band. After their father’s death, the brothers carried on performing, now joined by their cousins Diego, Paco and Tonino Baliardo, who were nephews of Manitas de Plata, and by Chico Bouchikhi, a French Moroccan musician. In 1983 the group recorded its debut album, Allegria, and its second album, Luna de fuego, released in 1984, fared no better nationally. Two albums that did not take off nationally, then a producer’s modern arrangements and rock-oriented backing musicians, can be read as a family sound meeting a wider audience through new arrangements. The turn-around came in August 1986, when the Parisian producer Claude Martinez saw the group performing in Arles; he introduced modern musical arrangements and engaged rock-oriented backing musicians to update the group’s sound. Success came with their self-titled third album, released in 1987 (1989 in the United States), which included the song “Djobi Djoba.” In 1992 the Los Angeles Times reported that the members ranged in age from 24 to 40 and that all learned their craft performing at family occasions in Gypsy camps, and Diego Baliardo said, “In my opinion even when people can’t understand one word we sing, they can understand everything. It’s just a question of feeling the emotion.” Learning at family gatherings and trusting feeling to carry across languages can be read as an emotional directness rooted in the family circle. In March 2004 the Gipsy Kings returned to their roots, going to the village of St André de Bueges in the Hérault region for a largely acoustic album, abandoning the synthesisers and rock and electro experiments of recent years. They were awarded the “Grand Prix du Répertoire Sacem à l’Export” in 2012, and their album Savor Flamenco won a Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album in 2014. A return to a largely acoustic sound in 2004 and a Grammy for a flamenco album in 2014 can be read as a group recognized for a style close to its roots.

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