Manitas de Plata

I was scrolling through YouTube late last night when one video caught my eye and pulled up old memories of watching Manitas de Plata on The Rolf Harris Show sometime in the 1960s or 1970s. That sent me digging through my record and compact disc collection until I found a few albums of his music and put them on again.

Manitas de Plata was one of those musicians whose life story sounded almost as improbable as his playing. Born Ricardo Baliardo in 1921 in a gypsy caravan in southern France, he came from Catalan Gitano stock and learned the guitar by listening, watching, copying and then pushing his fingers beyond what most people thought possible. He could not read music and for much of his life he could not read at all, but his hands did all the talking. His stage name, Manitas de Plata, Little Silver Hands, was no exaggeration.

For years, he had little interest in public fame. Music belonged to family, to the Gitano circle, to ritual and celebration. He played at private gatherings, weddings and the annual pilgrimage to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Concert halls and recording studios were not part of the plan. He did not make his first commercial recording until he was almost 40. While most musicians were already looking back, Manitas was only getting started.

His rise in the 1960s was something accidental. A New York photography exhibition by his friend Lucien Clergue caught the attention of American producers and suddenly this guitarist was pushed onto the international stage. Once the door opened, it stayed open. Records sold in vast numbers and he found himself playing in places far removed from the caravans of his youth.

At his peak, he became a fixture of the French Riviera jet set. Picasso adored him. Dalí, Bardot and others gathered around, entranced by the speed, fire and abandon of his playing. He was treated less like a musician than a force of nature, something raw and untamed that polite society could admire from a safe distance.

Yet among flamenco purists, Manitas was always divisive. To the wider public, he was crowned the King of Flamenco. In Spain, many bristled at the title. Flamenco rests on strict rhythmic discipline, but Manitas often treated those rules as optional. He played for feeling and effect, striking the guitar body like a drum or lifting one hand theatrically into the air while the other raced on. To some, this was heresy. To others, freedom.

Part of the unease lay in the fact that his flamenco was not quite Spanish. Born in France and influenced by the gypsy jazz of Django Reinhardt, he created a hybrid later labelled rumba flamenca. His legacy is hard to escape. Modern Gipsy rumba owes him much. Within his own family, he was the patriarch of a musical dynasty. His son Tonino Baliardo and his nephews, the Reyes brothers, carried that sound into the mainstream as the Gipsy Kings, tracing a clear line back to Manitas.

He played Carnegie Hall 14 times, performed for royalty and his music still surfaces in films, including those by Martin Scorsese. The end, however, was tinged with irony. Despite earning millions and living fast, he died almost penniless in a retirement home in Montpellier in 2014 at the age of 93. He spent freely, supported a very large family and reportedly fathered more than twenty children.

In the end, Manitas de Plata left behind little in the way of possessions, but an unmistakable sound, a disputed crown and the sense of a man who played exactly as he lived: fast, fiercely and with little concern for what came after.

Side One: Moorish church, Dark Sarah, Homage to Baroncelli, Blessing of the sea

Side Two: Mr Jailer, Galop, Fandangos, Shepherd's song, One tear