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rumba andaluza at all, but drew their influences from Cuban bands such as the Lecuona Cuban Boys, who for the first half of the twentieth century found themselves in Barcelona, and from the Caribbean sailors who came ashore at the "Platxeta" of the port. This protracted debate, entertaining and intriguing as it may be, could go on for ever if we exhausted all the possibilities, without ever hitting upon a definitive conclusion to fully explain the sequence of events. Perhaps better to simply skip over the obscure origins and move on to the forties, when a group of gypsies played rumba in 2:4 or 4:4 time on the streets of Barcelona. Was it imported or home-grown? Who knows - what we do know is that they used bongos and guiros as accompaniment as they played at private events and neighborhood street parties. And there was one final refinement which was to give the rumba catalana its freedom and autonomy: that unmistakable background sonsonete known as " el ventilador" (the fan). Dubbed by an admiring Gato Prez an "ingenious trick that's so easy to do", it consists of using the guitar to provide rhythm, melody and percussion: strum the instrument and simultaneously tap on the soundboard with your hand.
"'El ventilador' (the fan) consists of using the guitar to provide rhythm, melody and percussion"
The credit for this technique is owed to a gitano known as El Toqui who frequented taverns and played at private parties, though it became better-known when it was adopted and popularized by a peculiar family of guitarists and fishmongers, dubbed the Pescadillas. The first Pescadilla, Antonio Gonzlez, and his sons Manuel, Baldomero Onclo Mero, Joan Onclo Polla and Antonio, played long into the night at Charco de la Pava on calle Escudellers, and got carried away with the Cuban tumbao rhythms that were snooping around those parts at the end of the decade. Antonio Gonzlez was also less affectionately known as El Legaas - Bleary-eyed; it was Antonio junior who was to become most indelibly associated with the family nickname Pescadilla. After that first stone had been cast, the Gonzlez family began to neglect their business interests and threw themselves headlong into their musical endeavors. Antonio junior and Antonio senior wasted no time in taking their new concept to the capital Madrid, and the other brothers all followed suit. The fifties were decisive years for the family: they gave concerts, formed their own groups, El Legaas became one of Manolo Caracol's henchmen, they released various albums on the Belter label, and in 1957 Antonio el Pescadilla tied the knot with the best-known artist in Spain at the time: Lola Flores. The rest is history, and their life together warmed the hearts of three generations of Spaniards. Continues >>
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