Tonino Baliardo comes from a gypsy family. His grandparents emigrated from Spain to Montpellier in France, where he was born in 1961. Already at the age of 11 he was asked to play the guitar at parties and by the end of the eighties he conquered the charts as guitarist of The Gypsy Kings. The success of this band was anathema to flamenco purists, who had to stand by and watch as drunken crowds broke
… out in out-of-the-beat clapping all over Europe while hearing Bamboleo. And this band would be the essence of duende, of flamenco passion? Baliardo may be trying to get out of the shadow of The Gyspsy Kings with his first solo album Essences, but the question is whether he can ever do anything right in the eyes of the purists.more
