This torrent takes a little explanation. Let me state right up front that every single album and DVD in this collection is taken from various other torrents readily available singly on various trackers. I did not rip a single album here, choose the format, or anything else.

A buddy of mine who is a screaming Flamenco fanatic asked me to search and acquire all the Flamenco I could for him. He gave me quite an education in the nature and history of the art form. Some of the bands and artists here are legends – especially Cameron de la Isla and Paco de Lucia. Some are newcomers, and some are what he called “Flamenco Elevator Music”

So why am I dumping back a massive file of other people’s work? Because I went to the trouble of fixing almost all the tags, correcting false labels, finding artwork, and because many of these threads were very badly seeded. Where possible, I have left the names of original Ops alone so you can visit the torrent thread and thank THEM. I just figure that since it took me a about a week to compile all this into one big collection file, other folks might prefer to download a big collection instead of single files. Again, I apologize for the differences in formats (FLAC, MP3), but everything here is at a high bit rate. One fellow in particular went to an exceptional amount of technical trouble to perfectly rip a very rare Manitas de Plata LP from 1965.

There is a lot of useful information and some good links at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamenco

Flamenco is a Spanish musical genre with origins in Andalusia and a term that refers both to a musical genre, known for its intricate rapid passages, and a dance genre characterized by its audible footwork. The origins of the term are unclear. The word Flamenco, which applies to the song, the dance and the guitar, did not come into use until the 19th century.

Flamenco embodies a complex musical and cultural tradition. Although considered part of the culture of Spain, flamenco actually originates from one of Spain's regions: Andalusia. However, other areas, mainly Extremadura and Murcia, have contributed to the development of several flamenco musical forms, and a great number of renowned flamenco artists have been born in other territories of the country. It is generally acknowledged that flamenco grew out of the unique interplay of native Arabic, Andalusian, Sephardic, and Gypsy cultures that existed in Andalusia prior to and after the Reconquest. Latin American and especially Cuban influences have also been important in shaping the rumba flamenco form. Flamenco is the music of the gypsies and played in their social community. Andalusian people who grew up around gypsies and the life were also accepted as "flamencos" (Paco de Lucía).

"Flamencologists" or "Pro Dancers" have usually been flamenco connoisseurs of no specific academic training in the fields of history or musicology.[citation needed] They have tended to rely on a limited number of sources (mainly the writings of 19th century folklorist Demófilo,[1] and notes by foreign travellers. Bias has also been frequent in flamencology. This started to change in the 1980s, when flamenco slowly started to be included in music conservatories, and a growing number of musicologists and historians began to carry out more rigorous research. Since then, some new data have shed new light on it. (Ríos Ruiz, 1997:14)

There are questions not only about the origins of the music and dances of flamenco, but also about the origins of the very word flamenco. George Borrow writes that the word flemenc [sic] is synonymous with "Gypsy").

Blas Infante, in his book Orígenes de los Flamencos y Secreto del Cante Jondo, controversially argued that the word flamenco comes from Hispano-Arabic word fellahmengu, which would mean "expelled peasant"[2] after the end of the Moorish reign. term to the ethnic Andalusians of Muslim faith, the Moriscos, who would have mixed with the Gypsy newcomers in order to avoid religious persecution. Other hypotheses concerning the term's etymology include connections with Flanders (flamenco also means Flemish in Spanish), believed by Spanish people to be the origin of the Gypsies, or the flamante (ardent) execution by the performers, or the flamingos. [3].

However, in the 1990s works of scholars, such as the above mentioned Rios Ruiz and Álvarez Caballero demonstrated that there is much historical data available on early flamenco. (See subsection below: "The rise of flamenco")