Years ago while hosting Morning Becomes Eclectic, I was featuring some heavy-duty flamenco, the kind with intense singing and lots of hurt. It’s called “cante jondo” or “deep song”. Not your Ottmar Liebert kind of freeway flamenco.
We got a call from somebody saying they needed to find out what the music was and buy it right away. It was an album by Bernarda and Fernanda de Utrera, two old school flamenco sisters, on an import label. I gave them the info. The same person called back and said that Tower and the other local record stores (!!) didn’t have it. I directed the caller to Harmonia Mundi USA, the local distributor.
A year went by. Then I got a call from somebody saying they’d called me a year before about a compelling piece of flamenco music they badly needed. Yes, happily they went to Harmonia Mundi and bought it directly. Then gave the lp to Marlon Brando, who was listening to MBE that day and was about to board a plane for his island in Bora Bora, Tahiti.
It all goes to show you never know who’s out there listening to KCRW.
Here is a link to a “Juerga” , Spanish word for a small informal party where flamenco musicians play for each other, here featuring the Utrera sisters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF4eMEQYoM8