Drowning in Flamenco: Paco de Lucia and "Entre Dos Aguas"

Today's random tune is an instrumental called Entre Dos Aguas. It is performed by Paco de Lucia, who was a virtuoso flamenco guitarist composer and producer from Spain who was a leading proponent of the nuevo flamenco style. He was well known for his fast picados (fingerstyle runs) and juxtaposing picados and rasgueados (flamenco strumming) with more sensitive styling. He also added jazz influences that put him on the leading edge of nuevo flamenco and flamenco-jazz fusion in the 1970s. He died at age 66 of a heart attack in 2014. He has been called by Richard Chapman and Eric Clapton "a titanic figure in the world of flamenco guitar" and by Dennis Coster "one of history's greatest guitarists." You can find Entre Dos Aguas on de Lucia's 1986 album of the same name.

Suffused Beauty: Ottmar Liebert and "Morning Light"

I am not a morning person and I should be. I should be up and at them in the morning because there really is nothing like morning light. It has been a constant wherever I have lived - as the hint of the sun slowly appears on the horizon, or behind the mountains, or at the edge of the plains, the light in the sky moves from dark blue to pink to blazing orange, and then as the sun appears, long shadows suddenly appear only to shorten. The earth is diffused with a glow, and in a place like New Mexico where I live, it changes the very color of the landscape, contrasting the natural colors of rock and sand against each other and against sky and and river.

Today's random tune is by a somewhat controversial artist who lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Ottmar Liebert, originally from Germany, began studying classical guitar at eleven years old and flamenco guitar at fourteen. He played rock music in Germany before moving to the United States and eventually settling in Santa Fe in 1986. He released his first album in 1989, and initial sales were so good a remastered version was released in 1990 under the title of Nouveau Flamenco. This angered flamenco artists, who felt that Liebert's work was a poor imitation of not only traditional flamenco but also the Flamenco Nuevo movement to reinvent flamenco music. This left Liebert to explain that while his music has elements of flamenco, he was required by his record company to come up with a label for it and felt that flamenco was the closest description that people would know. Liebert cites influences such as Carlos Santana, Paco de Lucia, John McLaughlin, Robert Fripp, Jeff Beck and Miles Davis. He has released 28 albums, of which 11 are certified gold or platinum. This song, Morning Light, can be found on his 2008 album Scent of Light.