José Carlos Gómez was born in Algeciras (Cádiz) on the 16th June 1972.
At the age of five years old, he asked for a flamenco guitar to his parents as a gift for Christmas, because since he watched Paco de Lucia on television when he was about 3 years old, he fell in love with that sound. When he was 7 years old, he began to receive his first classes with the flamenco vocalist Flores “el Gaditano” and, two years later, with the guitarist Salvador Andrades, who gave him the methods and the sound of the Algeciras Guitar School created by Mr. Antonio Sánchez Pecino, father of Lucía’s brothers, who had taught Salvador. When he was only 11 years old, he began to give his first concerts as soloist playing some of his first musical compositions and works by Paco de Lucía. Together with Andres Rodriguez, he became part of the Cuadro Flamenco Solea. At this stage, some of the most importart years in his training began, as he was taught how to play for flamenco dancing and singing. The essential foundations for his future in Madrid started right at this moment. During these years, he met the guitarist Paco Narváez who greatly influenced his training as a guitarist, spending long days extracting pieces from other albums and improving the technique, the sound and the knowledge of harmony in flamenco guitar. When he was only 16 years old, he was already a renowned guitarist in the area accompanying vovalists such as Canela de San Roque or Antonio Madreles throughout Andalusia. Their first outings abroad began, giving guitar recitals in cities such as Paris or London with great recognition from the public. The following year, under the guidance of Pepe de Lucía, he made his first collaborations and he played along the young vocalist “Potito” in his first concerts and television programmes. In these concerts, it is worth mentioning the presence of two special people for José Carlos: the first, Moraito Chico, whom he would share the stage with and who would later say “this boy really plays Paco’s works” and, the second, Tomatito, whom he used to spend hours and hours playing with at airports; a dream come true for a young guitarist. Undisputed winner in the First Guitar Contest Ramón de Algeciras in Getafe with only 17 years old. Thanks to José María Bandera, he made the leap to Madrid to play along Merche Esmeralda during Los Veranos de la Villa together with Luis Habichuela, Ramón el Portugués and Talegón de Córdoba. The following year, this same flamenco dancer asked him to be part of the Ballet Región de Murcia as the first guitarist. In 1991, he joined the staff of the Ballet Nacional de España together with the guitarists Luis Habichuela and José María Bandera, remaining until 1997 playing in the most important theatres all over the world. His name already appeared as composer of some of the works in the repertoire of this ballet. After a break of two years in his professional life when he underwent a kidney transplant, he resumed his career in 1999. At that moment, he began to collaborate as second guitar on some albums or composing works for Duquende, Niña Pastori, Marina Heredia, El Pele, La Tana, La Susi, Armando Manzanero, Alejandro Sanz, Serrat, Sara Baras, etc. We should highlight the collaboration in the album Cañailla by Niña Pastori, produced by Alejandro Sanz, Josemi Carmona and Emanuele Ruffinengo, where he composed and played the alegrías “Sobre la Arena” and the tangos “Manolillo el Canastero”. This album had a great sales success and obtained great recognition in the flamenco world. Thanks to this showcase, he was called by many artists and producers as a guitarist and composer for different projects. One of these was the duet album of the Mexican artist Armando Manzanero, where he met the great producer Nacho Mañó. Nacho impressed a great influence on José Carlos due to his way of working with the sound and the atmosphere on musical productions. The soundtrack of the film Sin Vergüenza directed by Joaquín Oristrell and part of the musical repertoire of the shows Sabores and Carmen by the flamenco dancer Sara Baras were some of the works of this artist who has never stopped growing and was in a very creative moment of his career. From this moment, there were more and more assignments to compose songs. Step by step, writing became a kind of therapy for his life until 2010 when he released his first album: sung and produced by himself and Nacho Mañó. He created the record label Amorarte Music to release this work. During the next years he released some albums by different artists and a second album that includes duets with Miguel Poveda, Pastora Soler or Colombian singer Santiago Cruz, which includes the guitar piece Copla de Lucía, a tribute to the Master of Algeciras, under his own record label. Paco de Lucía said about him: “The good taste he has and the quality of what he is doing surprised me”. From this moment on, he began a new stage in which he devoted himself to musical production and composition, combining long studio sessions with his concerts as flamenco vocalist and some collaborations as a guitarist in different musical projects of artists such as Alejandro Fernández or Pasión Vega among others. During the spring of 2013, Alejandro Sanz invited him to collaborate in La Música No Se Toca tour as flamenco guitarist in the Corazón Partío song, he also participated in the recording of the La Música No Se Toca En Vivo DVD sharing the stage with artists such as Jamie Cullum among others. On May 10, 2016 his most awaited album ORIGEN goes on sale. It is a Flamenco Guitar album that quickly gains the recognition of experts. This album was highly valued because it somehow returned to the origins of the concert Flamenco Guitar with a great personality and an avant-garde sound. ORIGEN has been presented at festivals around the world, including the Jerez Flamenco Festival, Morelia International Guitar Festival (Mexico), Monterrey Flamenco Festival (Mexico), Querétaro Contemporary Iberian Festival (Mexico), Sarí International Guitar Festival (Iran), Brno International Guitar Festival (Czech Republic), Cervantes Institute in Tokyo (Japan) and the First Flamenco Heritage Cycle at the Roman Theatre in Bologna (Cadiz), among many others. He has received wonderful reviews from different journalists all over the world and ORIGEN has quickly positioned itself as one of the best Flamenco Guitar albums of the recent years. His new project in 2018 is PASAJE ANDALUZ, a concert for Guitar and Orchestra whose world premiere has taken place at the Morelia International Guitar Festival, on September 21 of this year, obtaining wonderful reviews and a great ovation from the audience that crowded the Teatro Ocampo of the city.
