It is our pleasure to review the recently completed book “Paco de Lucía, el hijo de la portuguesa” (its original title) published in 2015 by the Algeciras writer and journalist Juan José Tellez. A very deatiled account of the life and work of the guitar master much loved by our family. It was an honour to have recognized our historic workshop in the chapter titled “a work tool” by the author, dedicated to the guitars that belonged to Paco de Lucía.

We can read how Tellez transmits in the words of Felipe Conde how Paco de Lucía, in his beginnings played a cypress guitar, common at the time, until he decided to change: “That soft guitar is great for accompanying singers, to play it before a small crowd in a reduced setting, but towards the end of the sixties Paco de Lucía begun changing the way he plays guitar (he crossed his legs, nestled the side on his thigh and lowered the guitar’s neck, a posture that outraged many purists at the time) and to play on big stages before many spectators he asked my father for a guitar with more volume, more projection.”

Following the sense of these statements, Miñana adds: “the Hermanos Conde workshop produced a guitar built with the best rosewood, a spruce top, ebony fret board and a cedar neck, an instrument much more powerful than something conventional.”

Paco de Lucía’s guitar, current model FC 28, has an incalculable value. It takes two months to build it entirely by hand, maintaining the same quality of sound, the sound of best selected rosewood. And as this book explains, the Algeciras musician had many lovers, but always true to one in particular, his Conde guitar, the one he took out of the case only to perform in concerts.

We highly recommend this book which you can parchase via this link. You can read more about Paco de Lucía and the history of Conde guitars here.