sami: i've finally ended up in andalusia, in southern spain, the birthplace of flamenco. [men speaking spanish] [flamenco guitar playing] man: ole. [men speaking spanish] sami: flamenco is something much more deep than dancing for the tourists in a taverna, with a rose behind one ear. flamenco is powerful stuff. emotions are not held back. the soul is not spared. the technical virtuosity of the best flamenco musicians is unbelievable. the music is rhythmic science, incorporating

indian and arabic time signatures, even the triple time of the waltz. these elements are sometimes hard to recognize underneath all the polyrhythmic clapping. flamenco is more than music. it's a way of life. and it's a unique cultural phenomenon. [woman singing in spanish] sami: my old friend marco aguilar is a flamenco guitarist and one of the best people i've ever met. he will be our guide around andalusia. on this trip, i want to experience this exquisite brand of music as diversely as possible. i want to crush some of the preconceptions associated with it. i want to find flamenco in its most authentic, raw, and original

form. [music playing] i'm sami yaffa, and i'm a rock 'n' rolling globetrotter with an endless curiosity about all things musical. this is my exploration into why music is so important to us all. this is "sound tracker." [music playing] [guitar playing] granada wathe lasbastion of muslim rule in spain before the catholics took over the city. located by the sierra nevada mountain range, granada is one of the most important torch bearers of the flamenco tradition. [woman singing in spanish]

[guitar playing] [woman singing] sami: the heredia clan has traveled all around the world performing traditional flamenco. like all authentic flamenco groups, it's a family business, led by antonio heredia. the skills are learned from other family members from the generation before them, who in turn learn from the generation that came before them.

[woman singing in spanish] [guitar playing]

[woman singing in spanish] sami: sevilla is the ne york city of andalusia. straightforward, fast, and unpretentious. in sevilla, i got invited to the home of ricardo pachon. this meant a lot to me.

the man has produced nearly all of the most significant flamenco artists. like camaron de la isla, paco de lucia, and pata negra, among others. [bell rings] [beep] ricardo: hello? sami: hello. how are you? thanks for inviting me to your house. ricardo: nice to meet you. sami: yeah. [speaking spanish] ricardo: [speaking spanish] i'll show you my ricardo pachon liquor. yes. sami: absolutely. it's a ricardo homemade peach liquor. ricardo: i think it's very, very especial. [speaking spanish] sami: exactly. i'm blind. ricardo: when i was 16 or 17 years old, my family moved to the other side of the river in seville. so, we have seville, the river, and triana, which was

the gypsy quarter. so when i was very young, i mean 16, 17, i suddenly discover completely new things, discover the flamenco, solidarity, the sense of the life of the gypsy, and i became a little bit gypsy in my heart. the gypsies go to the studio and they say, where i-- i don't have any song. sami: right. ricardo: so you had to work for the songs, for the musian, to find e lyrics, to rehearsal, and nally the producer has a lot of work with t flamenco. sami: right. there's something about the rawness, you know, the raw quality of flamenco that reminds me of very early blues. ricardo: i have a collection, bigollection of all blues. i think it's the same. the gypsies were persecute very. the black people in the south of the united ates. the words, the lyrics are very similar, and the feeling. of course in ain--i me in adalia in the

south, we have theewish, we have, the moors, and the spanish people living together. sami: triana used thave a huge gypsy population in the forties, fifties. and then ey were relocated to ts mi. ricardo: in 1975, they decide to shut off the gypsies from triana. they destroy the houses and build flats, make money. sami: yeah, yeah. ricardo: so they shut all the gypsies from triana with the army, with the police. it was a very, very, very sad thing. sami: oh, man. ricardo: the saddest thing i-- i remember in my li, you know? [singing, cheering] sami: was it farruco on that video? oh, man. ricardo: the father of flamenco. sami: oh, yes. oh! ricardo: the godfather.

sami: ok. ricardo: yeah. sami: ok. oh ha ha. ricardo: so this is the archive. i have record. all the [indistinct]. in stereo. sami: it's all camaron tapes. ricardo: camaron, camaron, camaron, camaron. [indistinct] sami: wow. yeah, yeah, yeah. ricardo: and the sound is perfect. but, you know, the most important part of this archive comes from the american people. in the sixties, we have an american military base in moron. some american start to record with a tape recorder. i am talking to you about '61, '62, until the '70. nobody knew what is a record machine in spain. no, they went to all the fiestas. fernanda, yoli de la torre, and tony morena, juan talega, all the best gypsies in that period, and they participate on this life. american people. '72 i went to madrid and maria silva, she keep 200 tapes in the

basement in madrid. she say to me, please, take that with you, if you can sell. so i tried to sell to the government, andalusian government, because of patrimonio, the best music in andalusia. sami: yeah. it's like an historical treasure. ricardo: and the government was not interested at all. it's a disaster like that. [whistling] sami: it seems like flamenco, it's been mutating ricardo: yeah. sami: always. it's a never-ending experiment in a way. hey! tempo sur is a band that is open-mindedly taking flamenco to new dimensions, through jazz. the unconventional main instrument from here is the uble bass.

sami: it's--you know, it changes. you know. absolutely. [music continues]

[singing] [all laughing] sami: as the evening wore on, the training session turned into a party, a common occurrence in andalusia. residents from the neighboring houses join in for a night of wine, singing, and and the ever present borro. [flamenco guitar playing] [singing in spanish]

sami: [laughing] ole. how do you learn this [bleep]? sami: 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. >> 2, 1, 2, 3. >> oh, sorry. >> [counts off beat] 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2...

sami: ok. >> [continues counting off beat, guitar plays] 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez. [guitar playing] [continues counting off beat] sami: i've always been fascinated by the construction of musical instruments. the best flamenco guitars are are naturally manufactured in andalusia, and maestro andres dominguez is the cream of this particular crop.

sami: si. wow.

sami: diego del gastor was one of the big names in flamenco guitar. a major influence on paco de lucia and other giants of the genre. juan del gastor is the nephew of the dearly departed diego, who learned the secrets of the instruments from his uncle at a very young age. the dl gastor clan hails from the village of moron, wre the guitar-playing style is in a class of its own, with no need of unnecessary complications. i like to think of it as the black sabbath of flamenco.

sami: yeah, that's it. and it comes out, you know... just whap!

[singing in spanish] [music playing]

sami: chiki is a lady whose store is one of the main hangouts of the flamenco scene. located by the palace of the duchess of alba, it's open every night till late. young and old musicians and oficionados gather here to chat and jam. i saw some horrible performances but also breathtakingly great ones. it all depends on the night, i guess. it's kind of a rock show over again. [laughter] [indistinct chatter] chiki restores worn-out flamenco and sells them on to new owners. marco found himself a beautiful new dress. [music playing]

[music playing] sami: diego amador is a member of the legendary amador flamenco dynasty, a clan that has left big footprints on the rocky path of this music's history. i met diego for the first time in new york, where he played an incredible gig. the concert blew my mind and i couldn't shut up about it for months afterwards. as a musician, diego is completely in a class of his own. i get to meet the master at his home outside sevilla. i want to talk to him about the role of the piano in flamenco.

sami: that's crazy, man.s [both laugh]

[sami playing tune] that's my skill. [laughter] sami: yeah, yeah. [rat-a-tat sound] sami: yeah, yeah, yeah. louder. [both laughing] sami: yeah.

[music stops]

sami: flamenco has always been political. guitar god, paco de lucia as assaulted by franco's goons when he stated in a radio interview how the left hand thinks and the rightxecutes. who knows if he was talking about politics or simply guitar-playing? flamenco historian and artist juan pinilla sheds more light on the

relationship between politics and flamenco. juan: in the beginning, when flamenco was born here in the south of spain, many of the lyrics was against the power, against the love that's opening the people. , there were many, many similar also with an anarchism. of course they sang to love, they sang to love of mother, they sang life, they sang of friendship, but they also protest. and they also rotest ainst civilization that is built for, uh, rich people, not for poor people. sami: not for everybody. about the singers, obviously a lot of singers who sang against the dictatorship, against franco. the regime probably didn't look at it very nicely. juan; and many artists were arrested by the dictatorship and censor was awful for flamenco. we have a historic

example when they banned the eta. they kill it to [indistinct] blanco,ho was th successor of franco. enrique marin did the same day, he sang in the colegio de medicos de madrid...[singing] so they censor it, arrest the king, so... sami: hits it right on the spot. juan: and stopped it. sami: the concert. because of the crisis that is happening now in spain that started to happen a couple years ago, have you noticed if there's any kind of switching the lyrics in the tradition of flamenco, as people started to now sing against stats, that unfairness of the