When flamenco fans are still mourning the death of Antonio Núñez «Chocolate», another legendary singer of the same generation has given us cause to celebrate. Antonio Fernández Díaz (Puente Genil, 1923), known by all flamenco fans as Fosforito, has been named to receive the fifth «Llave de Oro del Cante» ever awarded. The last one was awarded posthumously in the year 2000 to José Monje Cruz, Camarón de la Isla, and before that, to singers Tomás El Nitri, Manuel Vallejo and Antonio Mairena.
Fosforito has enjoyed a long and dignified career and is one of the most
encyclopedic singers in history. In some circles he is criticized for
not having been an important interpreter of the most basic cantes such
as soleá or siguiriya, but his investigation of “soleá
apolá” has led to some creative details of his own which
have greatly enriched these cantes, and the singer has offered countless
lecture-demonstrations of these cantes illustrated with his own singing.
Fosforito’s personality is also permanently linked to other forms
such at the taranto de Almería, sung by nearly all cantaores for
dance, cantiñas, folkloric abandolao forms and petenera. His version
of the dramatic “siguiriya of Juanichi el manijero”, where
he introduces flashes of the major key giving a certain sound of “cabales”,
is powerfully evocative. Thanks to his work and recording with dancer
Manuela Vargas in the sixties, an entire generation of flamenco singers
for dance followed the splended example set by maestro Fosforito.
The Andaluz government which was responsible for awarding the prize,
underlined the value of Fosforito’s discography composed of 26 recordings
in which the singer “demonstrates his command of all the styles
and cultivates a multitude of versions, many of which are a direct result
of his creativity and which today are indispensable references for flamenco-lovers”,
and his work “to dignify and universalize flamenco, the extreme
relevance of his creations and his contribution to the revitalization
of nearly extinct forms”.
