Juan Habichuela
Who is Juan Habichuela?
Juan Carmona Carmona, who took the stage name of his father, José Habichuela, was born on 12 August 1933 in Granada, in the Cuestas de San Luis, and grew up in the caves of the Sacromonte during the hardship of the post-war years. He belonged to a gitano family with deep flamenco roots: his father, José Carmona Fernández, was a guitarist, and his grandfather, Habichuela el Viejo, had been a cantaor and guitarist. Among his brothers, Pepe and Carlos also became guitarists, and his son Antonio Carmona and his nephew Juan Camborio went on to join the group Ketama, extending the family saga to the present day with his grandson Juan Habichuela, already active as a guitarist.
As a child he worked as a dancer alongside Mario Maya in the caves of the Sacromonte, before devoting himself entirely to the guitar under the teaching of his father and of Juan Hidalgo Gómez, “El Ovejilla,” always acknowledging his debt to the playing of Niño Ricardo and Manolo de Huelva.
Career
In 1956 he moved to Madrid accompanying Mario Maya to debut at the tablao El Duende, and later settled at Torres Bermejas, where he built his career as an accompanist. He formed with cantaor Fosforito a celebrated artistic partnership that lasted decades, with international tours that took them to the 1964 New York World’s Fair and to a performance for the Kennedy family in Washington in 1965, where he recalled seeing a small Feria de Sevilla recreated amid a full flamenco atmosphere. Over more than five decades he also accompanied Jacinto Almadén, Antonio Mairena, Camarón, Enrique Morente, Estrella Morente, Carmen Linares, Diego Carrasco, Chano Lobato, Rancapino and Miguel Poveda, to the point of saying that there was not a single cantaor of the century he had not accompanied.
Style and discography
His technique, born of accompanying dance in the Sacromonte and of the school of Niño Ricardo, was marked by a touch described as sweetly pure, with arpeggios and tremolos that lent musicality to a discreet yet brilliant style, always placed at the service of the singer. His brother Pepe noted that his rasgueado, revolutionary in nature, transformed the way accompaniment was understood. Although he had recorded as an accompanist from a very young age alongside Rafael Farina and Manolo Caracol, his first solo album came late: “De la Zambra al Duende” (1999), featuring collaborations with Paco de Lucía, Alejandro Sanz, Ketama, Tomatito and José Mercé, followed by “Campo del Príncipe” (2002) and “Una Guitarra en Granada” (2007).
Legacy
He received the Guitar Prize of the Concurso Nacional de Arte Flamenco de Córdoba in 1974, the Premio Nacional de Guitarra from the Cátedra de Flamencología de Jerez in 1976, and the Compás del Cante in 1994 — the only award of its kind given specifically for excellence in accompaniment — as well as being named an honorary member of the Peña La Platería in Granada and honorary member of the university faculty of Alcalá de Henares. In 2008, near the end of his career, he handed his best guitar to his grandson Juan during the Veranos del Corral festival, confident he would become a major figure in flamenco. Juan Habichuela died in Madrid on 30 June 2016, leaving behind one of the longest and most respected accompanying careers in the history of flamenco.