El Fary

In the 1980s El Fary stood as the leading voice of la copla, the airy and sentimental strain of flamenco that had first taken hold more than fifty years before. José Luis Cantero Rada entered the world in Madrid on August 20, 1937. He passed his teenage years working as a delivery boy and gardener before mastering basic literacy during military service. After completing his tour of duty he took up driving a taxi, and it was around this period that he launched his recording efforts by pressing a run of singles at his own expense and hawking them at Madrid’s celebrated weekend flea market, the Rastro. Friends gave him the nickname “El Fary” because his high, trembling delivery so closely echoed that of the revered coplista Rafael Farina. By the middle of the 1970s he ranked among the style’s dwindling number of active performers when he stepped in at the last moment for a booking in the Andalusian town of Pozoblanco. The engagement attracted a fresh audience, and he soon joined flamenco legend Antonio Molina for a two-month tour; 1975 brought the release of his first album, Ritmo Caló. National recognition arrived in 1980 with his debut on José María Íñigo’s television program Fiesta. The smash single “El Toro Guapo” cemented his fame, yet he reached an even wider public through acting, most notably in the long-running sitcom Menudo Es Mi Padre. In the late 1990s he portrayed himself in Santiago Segura’s Torrente film series and wrote the theme “Apatrullando la Ciudad” for the franchise. Just weeks after receiving a lung-cancer diagnosis, El Fary passed away in Madrid on June 19, 2007.