Diego del Gastor
Who is Diego del Gastor?
Diego Amaya Flores, known as Diego del Gastor, was born on 15 March 1908 in Arriate (Málaga), into a family with a guitar tradition: his grandmother, Anilla la de Ronda, already played the guitar. He lived from childhood in El Gastor (Cádiz), the town that would give him his stage name, until 1923, when he moved to Morón de la Frontera (Seville), where he would spend the rest of his career and his life.
Career
He trained alongside his brother Pepe Amaya and with José Naranjo Solís, within the school stemming from Paco el de Lucena, also acknowledging the influence of Niño Ricardo. Diego himself recounted that “I began to study music. I studied the first, second and third parts of solfège,” and he always acknowledged that this theoretical knowledge helped him considerably in his development as a guitarist. Settled in Morón, his career unfolded mostly in private gatherings or “cabales,” with few public or television appearances, and he became the go-to accompanist for figures such as Fernanda and Bernarda de Utrera, Antonio Mairena, Juan Talega, Perrate and Joselero. He took part in the anthology “Archivo del cante flamenco” and provided the music for the television program “Rito y geografía del flamenco.”
Style and discography
He consciously turned his back on modern virtuosity in favor of a “cuerda pelá” style of playing, centered on the thumb and the bass strings, almost religiously faithful to the rhythm and marked by a more primitive, essential expression that many aficionados describe as possessing more soul and more duende than that of other guitarists of his time. That austere, personal style made him the recognized creator of the so-called “Morón school of playing,” one of the most influential currents in 20th-century flamenco.
Legacy
In 1973, the same year he died in Morón de la Frontera, he received the National Flamenco Prize from the Cátedra de Flamencología of Jerez. The following year, the town dedicated a street to him and erected a commemorative bust, the work of Juan B. Britto. His influence spread far beyond Andalusia, feeding schools of aficionados and scholars of flamenco guitar playing in Japan, New York and California.