Male flamenco singer |
| Name:Antonio Fernández Díaz |
| Birth: 1932 Puente Genil, Córdoba |
"In flamenco you have to communicate experiences and these can only be told by someone who has lived them. Of course, if you look at the technique, if you look at the structure, you learn the structure with its technique... but also with its defects; now, the way you "say", the way you are, the way you breath, I think that this has to do with the soul, it cannot be passed on".
|
|
Fosforito is one of the great masters of singing, whose artistic career is constantly progressing, in spite of his unbeatable start, which saw him winning awards in all the categories in the first Concurso Nacional del Arte Flamenco (National Flamenco Art Competition) in Córdoba (1956). At the time he was only 24, but he had already been involved in hundreds of fights and feasts during which he had been earning a living by singing for a few coins. Since he became famous, there has been no audience or award that has resisted him: he owns all the most important flamenco singing awards: Premio Nacional del Cante (National Singing Prize) of the Faculty of Flamencology in Jerez (1968), II Compás del Cante (1985) and the Premio Pastora Pavón (1999)...
After cutting his teeth in feasts, tablaos and travelling shows alongside other greats like Juan Valderrama and Manolo Caracol, Fosforito was precocious and enlightened in certain instances: he was the first to record singing in a taranto style, at least under this name, and he was also a pioneer for his support of Camarón de la Isla's first records.
Fosforito's recordings, among which the Selección Antológica del Cante Flamenco (1971, re-edited in 1992) with Paco de Lucía stands out, are a veritable treatise on technique. However, on this subject, Fosforito's own opinion needs to be taken into account: technique can be learned, but the soul cannot be transferred, “it stays with the person with whom it has travelled”, and without soul there is no flamenco. Francisco Hidalgo wrote a biography of this cantaor, the book "Fosforito, el último romántico" (Fosforito, the last romantic).
Fosforito has earned the 4th Llave del Cante (2005) for his work to dignify and universalise flamenco, the revitalising of styles that had fallen into disuse, the relevance of his creative contribution and an absolute mastery of all the styles. |
Antonio Fernández
