CD review: Paco De Lucia, Pepe De Lucia – Pepito and Paquito – Pepito y Paquito – 2024: Videos, CD cover

21 new tracks from the Spanish flamenco guitar master Paco de Lucía, and his brother, singer and songwriter Pepe de Lucía, have been unearthed after being hidden in a quince meat box for over 60 years. 

The tracks, which the guitarist and his brother recorded when they were 11 and 13 years old, have now been collated into an album, aptly titled Pepito y Paquito.

The recording took place between 1959 and 1960 on a Grundig tape recorder in Algeciras, first in the brothers’ family home and then in the quiet house of the mother of Reyes Benítez, the brothers’ main supporter. Its existence was known, but the exact location of the reels was a mystery, until Quique Benítez, Reyes Benítez’s son, found them in 2022.

Considering the recording’s age, the songs were recovered and restored thanks to new technology. They represent a moment in time before the brothers’ breakthrough as Los Chiquitos de Algeciras and the release of Paco de Lucía’s collaborative album, Dos guitarras flamencas en stereo, with Madrileño flamenco guitarist Ricardo Modrego.

Pepito y Paquito captures a moment in time when the two children were still discovering their inherent talents. Paco de Lucía’s guitar playing sounds distinctive and self-assured, projecting the long shadow of the legacy he would develop.

“Despite all the possibilities discovered in our instrument over the generations, it is not surprising to hear Maestro Paco at 12 years old already chasing the next level of what could be. In fact, according to these recordings, he was already there in many ways,” comments jazz guitar great Pat Metheny.

John McLaughlin agrees, adding: “Thanks to my friendship with Paco, I met his brother Pepe and heard him sing, and here is another phenomenon. Pepe’s singing at 13 years old is incredible. How can two children play and sing so well, with such passion and maturity?

Oh dear, how do you approach the review of an album like this? First of all, you’re delighted when you realise that you’re holding a vinyl double album by the exceptional guitarist and grandmaster of the flamenco guitar, PACO DE LUCIA – who has definitely become a legend (at least since 1980 with “Friday Night In San Francisco”) together with John McLaughlin and Al DiMeola.

But then the first thing that surprises you is the ancient photo on the front cover, which shows a proper Spanish mother holding two young sons by the hand. Is this the good Paco, born in 1947 (and unfortunately deceased in 2014), who was given his first guitar at the tender age of 5 by his father, who was also a guitarist, putting his childhood to music?

Wrong guess! Nobody is putting their childhood to music here, but rather it is about the recordings of PACO & PEPE DE LUCIA, which were made in their parents’ house – recorded by a family friend with a Grundig TK46 recorder – when Paco was 11 years old together with his brother Pepe, who is two years older than him, and who present all their skills, which are actually already extraordinary. In the end, a total of 21 recordings were made, now spread over two LPs and with very extensive accompanying text inside the gatefold cover.

So on this album we go way back to 1959 – a musically fateful year for the two brothers, in which they performed in public for the first time and actually received a special prize at the flamenco competition at the Jerez de la Frontera Festival (a city in the Spanish region of Andalusia). That was actually the beginning of two world careers, both of which are now united on this double album and permanently documented in tape bootleg quality. A real collector’s item, indispensable for all fans of PACO and PEPE DE LUCIA – but nothing more. However, you have to seriously ask yourself what possessed ‘Rolling Stone’ to give this album four out of five stars.

You can’t seriously rate this ‘children’s album’ with such quality (in terms of sound, but also music)! It is nothing other than a real collector’s item that shows the precocious musical qualities of the 12 and 14 year old sons of the Gómez family, the younger of whom then became a world-famous guitarist under the name PACO DE LUCIA, whose skills can actually be heard on this album, although the singing of his older brother PEPE DE LUCIA, who later became a successful flamenco singer, is a little annoying, as he constantly sticks to a very similar flamenco singing style (which he developed and perfected in his later years), while Paco plays his guitar in a very varied way.

The home recorder recordings, which have now resurfaced completely unexpectedly 65 years later, do not go beyond a mono bootleg level, which they have tried to restore as best as possible with great care and with the help of various AI tools. And so that those who value such a rare collector’s item enough to put it in their record collection next to the ‘world culture’ flamenco albums of the great Paco, a lot of love was put into the design of the double LP, which already boasts the high-quality photo on the front cover from 1959.

The beautifully printed LP inner sleeves, each with a full-page photo of the two brothers on one side and all the Spanish texts that are to be read on the other side, are also completely convincing. If you open the LP fold-out cover, you will find an extensive text (unfortunately only Spanish) and other very good black and white photos of the two boys and their parents. Here the record company has become aware of its task of bringing this music to men and women in the appropriate design framework.

In the end, only the question remains: What would PACO DE LUCIA have said about this release? It is clear that this question remains unanswered. But according to the announcement, this album in particular is intended to honor the tenth anniversary of the death of the world-famous flamenco guitarist in a special way. How this was achieved is now entirely the responsibility of the viewer and listener.

Now it gets historical and mysterious and goes back over 65 years into the musical past, which can surprisingly be revived – also with the help of AI (and at the same time shows its sound-technical limits): In 1959, a friend of the family visited the house of PACO DE LUCIA (then 12 years old on guitar) and PEPE DE LUCIA (14 years old and singer), where he made several recordings of the two with a Grundig TK46 tape recorder. This tape disappeared in 1967 and was rediscovered in 2022 after a long search. It is certainly not too difficult to imagine how the recordings sound today.

Mono and at bootleg level, but carefully restored on an AI basis. In the end, to mark the tenth anniversary of PACO DE LUCIA’s death, a very special collector’s item was created: “Las grabaciones perdidas de PEPE DE LUCIA y PACO DE LUCIA *1959*”, which was designed as a double LP in very high quality and provided with extensive texts and photos from that time (1959). Absolutely valuable for the collector – for the audiophile connoisseur, more of a not really sonorous relic from a bygone era.