50 years later. The recital by one of the creators of Catalan rumba and forerunner of flamenco pop will take place on 17 September on Paseo de La Corredera
The singer and dancer from Caravaca Maruja Garrido returns to her homeland nearly fifty years after her last visit to star in a concert organized by the City Council of Caravaca de la Cruz, closing the municipal summer program. The appointment is on Saturday, September 17, at 9 p.m., on Paseo de La Corredera, with free entry. To facilitate traffic from the districts of the municipality, the Consistory will provide a free bus line with timetables and departures that will be communicated through the district districts and national women’s associations.
Maruja Garrido visited the town of Caravaca de la Cruz in 1976, when she offered a charity concert in favor of a school for the disabled at the Gran Teatro Cinema and received tribute from her compatriots by christening a central avenue with her name in recognition of her extensive artistic career.
Daughter of the outstanding flamenco singer Niño de Levante, Maruja was born in 1942 into a very modest family. As Juan Manuel Villanueva reports in an article dedicated to the artist, “she accompanied her grandmother to see the companies that paraded through the Gran Teatro Cinema, where they played shows by Juanita Reina, Lola Flores, Imperio Argentina or Conchita Piquer, who presented what would become a personal art».
Soon he went to Cartagena and shortly after to Barcelona, where he made his debut with the tablao Los Tarantos. There he fell together with Antonio Gades, among others. His famous performances at the Olimpia Theater in Paris, sponsored by the legendary artist Salvador Dalí, have made history.
Back in Barcelona she was one of the creators of the Catalan rumba along with Peret and Antonio González ‘El Pescaílla’. She became famous for her flamenco version of classical songs like ‘Guantanamera’ or ‘Extraños en la noche’, but her big success came with the song ‘Es mi hombre’, accompanied by a video with Salvador Dalí and produced by Valerio Lazarov. for TVE. He formed his own flamenco group and also performed as a real star at the Festival del Cante de las Minas de La Unión in the 1960s.
The Caravaca historian Francisco Fernández wrote of her that “her name stands alone in a privileged place in the history of Spanish popular music. From the humblest origins to the pinnacle of fame, an example of self-improvement, explaining the success of a career based on work, perseverance and sacrifice, but also on art, because Maruja is an artist through and through. Duende, ‘feeling’, temperament and emotion…». Maruja Garrido was rightly called “the voice of fire”, her very personal style broke the Spanish music scene in the late 60s and she was the forerunner and maximum representative of what was later called “flamenco pop”.
Source: La Verdad
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