I played the Spanish guitar for eight years, like flamenco.
When I was 15, I became an avid fan of Andres Segovia. He brought so much respectability to the guitar.
The only sliding I did was on the kind of instrument that you put on your lap; no Spanish electrics.
I love to learn, and I started doing a lot of studying of Spanish-style music and really started getting into it and how it is just a completely different form of guitar playing. It is just like if you started speaking in a different language like Japanese or something. It is something that you have to study and work at a lot.
I really liked the Mariachi singing in Westerns.
Flamenco was probably the first music that I may have heard as a baby, because my father played flamenco.
A gut-string classical Spanish guitar, a sweet, lovely little lady. The smell of it. Even now, to open a guitar case, when it's an old wooden guitar, I could crawl in and close the lid.
I'm very much into the Gypsy Kings. It's rumba and very festive, very passionate music, rhythmic guitar, passionate singing about love from happy people.
The greatest guitar player in the world today for me is Paco de Lucia, who is actually Spanish.
I love the dancing and the music from Latin cultures. I went to a Flamenco show in Spain once, and it completely took my breath away!
I've always played a lot of Spanish music, but not as much as most guitarists do.
The first guitar I ever had was a gut-string Spanish guitar, and I couldn't really get the hang of it. I was only 13, and I talked my grandparents into buying it for me. I tried and tried and tried, but got nowhere with it.
I listened to classical guitar and Spanish guitar, as well as jazz guitar players, rock and roll and blues. All of it. I did the same thing with my voice.
I listened to 'En la Ceremony' and had always wished it had some flamenco guitar.
What is a seemingly conservative Englishman doing, leading the world in the mastery of a classically Spanish instrument? Debussy wrote some of the best Spanish music, and the only time he was ever in the country, he saw a bullfight which made him ill.
In most places that are rich in guitar culture, everyone uses their fingers, like in Spain or Africa. In Japan there are string instruments played that way. It is not until you get in the States that you find people using picks.
I discovered flamenco when I was 14, before I even got involved with jazz music. I was so crazy about flamenco music. I wanted to be a flamenco guitar player.
I learned mainly by listening to Andres Segovia and that was a great inspiration. And also the gypsy jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt.
