Cadiz does justice once again with Juanito VillarIn 2024 he was named Favorite Son and since Wednesday, September 10, the master of the canteCadizians enjoy a monument in their honor, the work of the sculptor Manuel Jesus Sanchez Parra, who, by the way, was very pleased with the result “after a year of work in the company of Juan's family.”
It was a very special night and this is how we tell it #FromWithinImagine that you are told that on an afternoon in September 2025 you would meet at the entrance to La Caleta, where the Peña Juanito Villar, Paco Cepero, Rancapino and Juanito himself, undisputed protagonists of an era of cante from Cadiz and Los Puertos. Well, that's what happened. Other illustrious people from the Silver Cup , the Rebujina, inseparable, Carmen Ledesma, Caracolillo of Cadiz, Rancapino Chico, May Fernandez, The brothers Incarnates and José Anillo, Edu Guerrero, María Moreno, Nonito Reyes, Patricia Valdés, Antonio Moya, Juanelo...
Tears in his eyes, smiles, good vibes, harmony, joy. Juanito Villar, who had just returned from Japan, “where I had been from top to bottom,” was celebrating. It was eight in the evening when the atmosphere was beginning to heat up and the crowd was beginning to gather. Fernando Quiñones Walk It was enlivened by the arrival of familiar faces. But it wasn't a cheesy or remote inauguration, on the contrary. Everything had been born thanks to popular demand, so the residents of La Viña and other working-class neighborhoods of Cádiz were the protagonists. To the sound of I am from Cadiz, a title that the maestro recorded in 1980 and that became an anthem (lyrics and music by Cepero), the monument overlooking the neighborhood where Juanito was born was unveiled.
"When the work was finally revealed, Juanito wept with emotion and shared it with everyone. One of the greats, devoted to his homeland, to his people, proud and grateful. 'Is no one a prophet in his own land? I am,' he confirmed to me."
It is a life-size bronze work, with the singer sitting on a chair, wearing a suit jacket and tie, and a sorrowful expression of a complainA red cloth covered it while on a side stage, the appropriate words were given by institutional figures, such as the mayor Bruno Garcia, the sculptor, the flamencologist Felix Rodriguez Gutierrez or the singer's daughter, who only had words of gratitude. When the work was finally revealed, Juanito wept with emotion and shared it with everyone. One of the greats, devoted to his land, to his people, proud and grateful. "Is no one a prophet in his own land? I am," he confirmed to me.
Cepero and he embraced. The audience barely let him breathe because they all wanted to congratulate him. "In life, that's how things are done," was heard constantly. And it's true. Juan is one of the most important figures of the last fifty years. Born in 1947, he has a discography as rich as it is extensive, with more than twenty albums, some of which have been best-sellers. Tell me, love is gone, what a pretty face...to name a few of those hits that played in every house where the flamenco liked.
Long live Juanito Villar! That he will continue going every morning to the terrace of his peña, greeting his followers, having a beer with Rebujina and company, with his monument a few meters from where he was born, where those of Fernando Quiñones and Paco Alba are… Culture. ♦
