Whenever I can, I emphasize my admiration for a certain type of researcher flamenco The foreigner is very special. Don't tell me it's not admirable that a foreigner, man or woman, of course, who comes from a different country, sometimes far away, with different customs, music, and language, approaches ours. flamencoAnd not only that, but also to be able to research it and publish, generally successfully, the results of their studies. I remember when I went to conferences of flamenco and some of the speakers had names like Akio Iino, Gerhard Steingressetc. My goodness, and here I was thinking that the flamenco It is only from Andalusia and little else, being, as it is and as this demonstrates, a universal art, a universal music.
Well, another example of what I mean is the author of The writers and the flamencoThe anti-Franco struggle (1967-1978), Tyler BarbourTyler, who's certainly not from Jerez with that name, was born in San Diego, California, USA, in 1986. He studied International Relations and Hispanic Philology—yes, Hispanic, like me, folks—so he's a colleague. As a guitarist, he's accompanied the dance company. Flamenco Arana.
Video of the book presentation, with José Jurado Morales y Patricia ParraJerez, 2025:
In 2010 he received a scholarship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, and in 2013 he completed a Master's degree in Hispanic Studies to further immerse himself in Spanish culture, based in Cádiz. And so we come to another milestone: the completion of his doctoral thesis, defended in 2019, on political dissent in the flamenco from the second half of the last century. He has continued to learn about the guitar and in 2025 published the book we mentioned, based on his doctoral thesis.
"A necessary, competent book that makes a great contribution to the study of this crucial moment for the flamencoFor Spain, for everyone. The constant relationship between music is magnificent. flamenco and its poetic support and the poems of so-called authorial or learned poetry, as well as the relationship with the historical context and the appropriate selection of lyrics."
It is not the first book that has been written about social values, denouncing, and criticizing the flamenco, referring both to the artists and to the literature and its contexts. Let us recall, as he does in the bibliography, previous books, with greater or lesser academic or research depth, by Jose L. Ortiz New, Manuel Bohorquez, Alfredo Grimaldos, Gutiérrez Carbajo, Juan Pinilla, etc.
Here we see the author reciting flamenco lyrics by Ortiz Nuevo during the presentation of his book at the Peña Flamenca Canalejas of Puerto Real, on May 23, 2025. They are soleares, entitled And I didn't even know how to swim., which are found in his songbook Flamenco songs of the 20th century:
It focuses on a key period in the political, social, and cultural history of recent Spain: the final years of the Franco regime and the beginning of democracy, from 1967 to 1978. The book, published by the Cadiz UniversityIt studies in depth the characteristics and contributions to the fight against the lack of freedom of the dictatorship through aspects such as the contributions of San Juan Evangelista University Residence Hall, nicknamed the Johnny, where writers and musicians came together, flamencoIn this case, as well as theater companies like The Stable of Salvador TávoraA classic now, the powerful voice of flamenco singers, then young, some now gone, like Jose Menese, Enrique Morente, Manuel Gerena, Paco Moyano, Lola Hisado o Diego Clavel, with the poetic support, also partly social criticism, of authors such as Francisco Moreno Galvan, Andrés Ruiz, big felix, Caballero Bonaldetc. That's where a whole stage of intensification of versions of poems began to take shape. flamencos al cante, Like the ones of Miguel Hernández, García Lorca, Albertietc., something that has increased exponentially since the nineties also as a continuation of that boom of those years.
Here I offer examples of flamenco lyrics from some of the poets and lyricists mentioned:
Manuel Gerena:
So that my song may not die
I will scream from underground.
Not even death can silence me.
even if it comes to me early.
Andrés Ruiz:
For defending the truth
Some lose their lives,
Others offer it and give it.
Paco Moyano:
Stab me with knives,
tie me with strings,
My body has already been hit so many times.
that nothing hurts me.
Francisco Moreno Galván:
I was hitting
mouthfuls in the air,
sometimes out of anger,
and others of hunger.
José L. Ortiz Nuevo:
I don't want anything from anyone.
I just want what's mine:
that which they stole from me
even before he was born.
Let's listen to Manuel Gerena in this 2016 documentary, The Voice in Struggle:
Barbour has used both oral sources, through interviews, and written sources, which are essential. We therefore have a solid, well-organized investigation with a wealth of relevant information.
The distinction between flamenco apolitical, with names like Paco de Lucía, Alfredo Arrebola o Amos King, and flamenco anti-Francoist, along with others such as Ortiz Nuevo, Moreno Galván, Manuel Gerena, and Caballero Bonald. Also included is a commentary on how non-flamenco poetry is used as a political weapon, due to the censorship of its authors.
Since Alfredo Arrebola has been mentioned, I want to show you a man deeply committed to the flamenco As an amateur, flamenco singer, and researcher whom I had the honor of knowing and becoming friends with. He sang the cane in 1992. The door of the CanteCanal Sur:
A necessary, competent book that makes a great contribution to the study of this crucial moment for the flamencoFor Spain, for everyone. The constant relationship between music is magnificent. flamenco and its poetic support, the poems of so-called literary or learned poetry, as well as the relationship with the historical context and the appropriate selection of lyrics that serve as examples and guides to what was sung—lyrics that sometimes soared, but at other times descended to the circumstantial and propagandistic, upon which time has cast its oblivion. The desire for freedom, for justice, for dialogue has been defended here through this academic and at the same time intimate study.
To learn more about its author and this book, follow this link to the article. Alejandro Luque in March 2025 in our ExpoFlamenco:
And this other one from the interview Jose Maria Castano also in our ExpoFlamenco in December 2025:
Tyler Barbour, 'Writers and the flamenco: the anti-Franco struggle (1967 – 1978)'
→ Barbour, Tyler: The writers and the flamenco: the anti-Franco struggle (1967 1978) Cadiz, University of Cadiz Press, 2025.
Very interesting. Thanks
And I forgot, thanks for pointing out the documentaries.