Vicente Amigo

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Vicente Amigo.

Vicente Amigo Girol (born 1967) is a Spanish flamenco composer and virtuoso guitarist, born in Guadalcanal, near Seville. He is usually considered one of the greatest living guitarists, in succession to Paco de Lucía.^{[citation needed]} He has played as backing guitarist on recordings by flamenco singers El Pele, Camarón de la Isla, Vicente Soto, Luis de Córdoba and the rociero band Salmarina, and he has acted as a producer for Remedios Amaya and José Mercé. His album Ciudad de las Ideas won the 2001 Latin Grammy for the Best Flamenco Album and the 2002 Ondas award for the best Flamenco work.

[edit] Biography

Although he is Sevillian by birth, he was raised and lives in Córdoba, where he attended his first guitar lessons with El Tomate and Merengue de Córdoba, and later, he perfected his guitar playing with Manolo Sanlúcar, with whom he worked for ten years. After a period of accompaniment which began alongside El Pele, he started to devote himself almost exclusively to playing concerts in 1988. De Mi Corazón al Aire ("From My Heart to the Air", 1991) was his first record. An admirer of Paco de Lucía since childhood, Amigo took part with him in the show "Leyendas de la guitarra" (Legends of the Guitar) that was held in Seville as a foretaste of the Expo 92 exhibition, which also featured Paco de Lucía, Bob Dylan, Keith Richards, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Nuno Bettencourt, Phil Manzanera, Joe Cocker, Jack Bruce and Richard Thompson. By that time, he had already been awarded some of the most prestigious flamenco guitar prizes.

In 1992, alongside Leo Brouwer, he composed and recorded Concierto Para Un Marinero en Tierra ("Concert for a Landed Sailor"), a tribute to Rafael Alberti, which was included later as part of his album Poeta (1997) for which he obtained awards in the Best Flamenco Artist and Best Flamenco Composer categories.

Vicente Amigo is open to experimenting, pursuing Flamenco to unprecedented limits, and gaining in-depth knowledge about other forms of music, and sharing experiences with other artists. He has taken part in recordings by Khaled, Miguel Bosé, Carmen Linares, Manolo Sanlúcar, Wagner Tiso, Rosario, Nacho Cano, Alejandro Sanz, Sting, etc, and has shared the stage with the greatest of contemporary artists: Paco de Lucía, Stanley Jordan, John McLaughlin, Al Di Meola, Milton Nascimento.