Alejandro Sanz
photo: pedro j pacheco · cc by-sa 4.0 ↗Alejandro Sánchez Pizarro, born in Madrid in 1968 to Andalusian parents, learned guitar as a boy from his father and absorbed flamenco during family summers in the south — even as he spent his teens as a self-described heavy-metal devotee. He built a signature style of pop and rock ballads laced with flamenco phrasing, breaking through in Spain with 1991's 'Viviendo Deprisa' and becoming one of the best-selling Spanish-language artists of all time on the strength of 1997's 'Corazón Partío.'
Sanz has said he idolized flamenco guitar master Paco de Lucía as a child — the two later recorded together — and de Lucía's fluid, virtuosic playing and rumba-flamenco feel underpin the guitar-and-palmas foundation of Sanz's pop.
listen forCue de Lucía's 'Entre Dos Aguas' and then Sanz's 'Corazón Partío' — listen for the same warm nylon-string flamenco guitar and hand-clap rhythm carrying a melody, only now it is holding up a pop chorus.
Sanz has credited his distinctive raspy voice to his flamenco roots and called Camarón de la Isla the greatest flamenco artist; you can hear that cante influence in the gravelly, keening quality Sanz brings to his big emotional peaks.
listen forPlay Camarón's 'Volando Voy' and then Sanz's 'Y ¿Si Fuera Ella?' — notice the same cracked, quejío-style vocal ache and melismatic bends Sanz reaches for as the ballad swells.
Before flamenco pop, the teenage Sanz was a self-described heavy-metal radical who loved bands like Iron Maiden and Dio; that youthful hard-rock energy surfaces in the forceful, driving attack of his early uptempo material rather than in any literal metal sound.
listen forPut Iron Maiden's galloping 'Run to the Hills' next to Sanz's early single 'Pisando Fuerte' — the restless, forward-charging rhythmic push carries over even as the genre flips from metal to breezy Spanish pop.