| Juan Martín | |
| Background: | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Instrument: | Guitar |
| Genre: | Flamenco music |
| Occupation: | Composer, Guitarist |
| Associated Acts: | What follows in the Wikipedia article is largely nonsense. This will be deleted by the 'Juan Martin' police, but it may stay up long enough to alert a few to the (broadly speaking) truth. Juan Martin is in fact English, and hails from Shoreham, Sussex. This is well known locally. His name when I was at school with him in Midhurst, Sussex, in the late 1950s/early 1960s was John Newman. He was, like me, a boarder at Midhurst Grammar School. But unlike me he was always in trouble with the headmaster N B C Lucas. One of the main issues was that he kept on sneaking off to the nearby city of Chichester, in the company of my friend Jerry Fox, to take flamenco guitar lessons. John's main aim was to go to Spain and learn to play flamenco, and in this - after a somewhat unillustrious school career - he succeeded. He is a fine guitarist - though my main English teacher (Ian Davies) did not rate him very highly and my Spanish teachers had never heard of him - but this deception continues to needle me after it must be half a century. |
Juan Cristóbal Martín (born 1948) is a Spanish flamenco guitarist[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] and an author of flamenco guitar method books.
Raised in Malaga, Juan Martín started learning the guitar at the age of six. In his early twenties he moved to Madrid to study under Niño Ricardo and Paco de Lucía.[8] He played in clubs in Málaga, Seville and Granada. He soon moved to London, where he has developed most of his career. One of his first recordings was Picasso Portraits (1981) based on the music he played at Picasso's 90th birthday celebrations. Each section is a depiction of a painting by Pablo Picasso. Although it was not released until the 1990s, he recorded a track with Rory Gallagher in 1984 (on the album, Wheels Within Wheels). Also in 1984 his track "Love Theme from The Thorn Birds" reached number 10 in the UK Singles Chart.[9] He recorded with Herbie Hancock in 1987 and has played on stage with Miles Davis.
Juan Martín is the author of several textbooks on flamenco playing, including El Arte Flamenco de la Guitarra, issued with cassette tapes and later with vinyl sound sheets, and 'Solos Flamencos' issued with CDs and DVDs. Both tutorial books, printed in English and Spanish, are successful in the English-speaking world.
He now divides his time between London and Málaga.
He has an English wife, Helen. They have a family business called Flamencovision.
Juan Martín and Antonio Aparecida
DVD