Flamenco singer Manuel Moneo passed away earlier this week. 

The huge mural of him that you see in the picture above was steps away from where we study bulerí­as on the Flamenco Tour to Jerez in the Plaza Cristo de la Expiración in the historic flamenco neighborhood of San Miguel. (You can see a video on the making of the mural below.)

Manuel was known for his siguiriyas and soleá. Here you can watch him singing martinete in Carlos Saura's movie, Flamenco.

To sing flamenco well one needs to be able to feel and to love,

~ Manuel Moneo

He talks about this concept in a video interview I watched with him on YouTube. (Unfortunately it has since been taken down. He shared some of his story and also spoke about the importance of el Barrio San Miguel, La Plazuela, to flamenco.)

Let's listen to him sing por bulerías (con mucho arte). Here is one of the letras you'll hear:

Bulerías

Era por la madrugá
Yo me rompi mi camisa
Escuchándote cantar

It was the middle of the night
I ripped my shirt
Listening to you sing

Here you can watch the mural come to life. It was part of a photography exposition, Presencias, by Juan Carlos Toro for the Festival de Jerez featuring important flamencos in historic flamenco zones throughout the city:

Here are more pictures I took of what remained of the mural in June 2016:

Here you can see video from his funeral on Dec. 20, 2017.

And finally, here is that interview:

By the way, I took a break from the flamenco cuplé series in order to publish this today and pay tribute to Manuel Moneo. I'll continue with the final post of that series next week.

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