“Pepito y Paquito”: Unreleased recording by Paco de Lucía when he was 11 years old is released

“He looks like a 60-year-old playing.” That was Antonio Carmona’s reaction when he heard for the first time the flamenco tango “I lack the resistance”, in which Pepe de Lucía, aged 13, sings with his brother Paco on the guitar.

“They are two old men. It doesn’t seem like how old they are there,” says Carmona about the sound of the two children, who at that time were known as Pepito and Paquito, the Sánchez Gómez brothers, even before they presented themselves as the duo Los Chiquitos de Algeciras in 1961. .

“I lack resistance”, an original composition by Dolores Campos Heredia, “La Pirula” from Málaga, is one of the 21 unreleased songs that are now released on vinyl and CD, with a deluxe edition that includes a book with photographs, with the title “Pepito and Paquito: The lost tapes of Pepe de Lucía and Paco de Lucía”. Captured 65 years ago on a Grundig TK46 tape recorder, these recordings have been restored with the help of Artificial Intelligence tools, according to those responsible for the BMG record label that publishes the album.

The first four singles from the album – the aforementioned tango, some bulerías and a zapateado by Niño Ricardo that represent Paco de Lucía’s first guitar solos, and the soleares “Se Comerá Mi Dolor” – had already been presented on February 24 in New York, in an emotional event at the Orensanz Foundation that marked the closing of the Paco de Lucía Legacy festival.

There Pepe de Lucía, 78 years old, recalled the importance of New York in his career and that of his brother: “This was where we began our greatest successes. I am very fond of the United States because it is the one who gave us the ability to be an artist.”

The older of the two brothers assures that he does not recognize himself in the recordings found in a closet in Algeciras in 2022, but that it brings back memories of the “happiest time” of their lives and that it represents “an appropriate end” to their careers.

Paco de Lucía, who disappeared in 2014 at the age of 66, is considered the most important figure in the history of flamenco and, for many, the best guitarist of all time.

· Read more: Paco de Lucía was honored in New York 10 years after his death